I have a floppy with data on it that I need. The floppy has suddenly (in the last couple of hours) decided it doesn't want to be read any more - Windows won't recognise the file system on there.

Anyone got any good tips on how to try and get the data off safely? I haven't done anything with floppies for years.

No one has done anything with floppies for centuries. Why would you use a floppy for data you need. USB stick anyone ? ( unless on NT4 or less then u iz noob ) Where is the backup ???!$!$!

You are probably s*** out of luck unless you can use one of those data recovery progs to try and get it back. Can you read it in DOS ?

tried reading it under a linux OS? knoppix livecd always comes in handy for this sort of stuff.

Nailbomb, I haven't, will be trying soon. Still waiting for the sufferer to drop the disk over.

Its not my floppy; I would never ever use floppies for anything for this exact reason.

Try it on another PC and hope for the best, that's about the only thing that's worked for me. The problem you described is the reason we don't use them anymore.

Yeah this crap happens all the time.

can you try and track down norton disk doctor for floppies?

it used to do the trick

I use bad copy pro

Specialises on word docs

Floppys are bad

use usb drive

:(

um two things trog

I know this is probably a stupid question now-a-days but you never know.. is it low density or double density?

if you're lucky and it's ld, try and find an ld drive. guess who's got one in the shed :) this all depends on how important the data is

secondly, and this is a long shot too.. you can annihilate most of the casing and transplant the platter itself into another casing while checking for physical problems. could be something as simple as the catch not catching or dirt?

This is what I use and it works very well -

http://www.download.com/BadCopy-Pro/3000-2248_4-10333693.html?tag=lst-0-1

Thanks for all the replies and sorry that I forgot to update my progress!

I remembered a tool I used before years ago when my DeathStar bit the dust. R-Studio: http://www.r-studio.com/

This thing is the f***ing bomb and that's twice its saved the bacon. The demo version only will restore files that are less than 64k but fortunately 3/4 files that I was asked to recover were just less than that (small .doc files), and they were the 3 really important ones.

Anyway this software rocks and is definitely worth a crack when you think all hope is lost.

Anyway this software rocks and is definitely worth a crack when you think all hope is lost.

...and by worth a crack you mean worth having a go of, and not downloading a juarez version of...right trog? :p

I bet trog still uses data tapes.

and mainframe computers.

I still use punchcards