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Thread ID: 79237 2007-05-13 12:15:00 Recovering data from crook floppy Billy T (70) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
549558 2007-05-14 23:25:00 I have not tried it on a floppy but it may work.

www.download.com

Downloaded & installed but it will only access my cd drive. There is no other option available,

Bugger :(


Thanks anyway

Cheers

Billy 8-{)
Billy T (70)
549559 2007-05-15 00:20:00 Hi,

Look at:
http://www . hiren . info/
(under data recovery and bootable CD) - you'll need to search for download for obvious reasons .

Also I use data recovery software from http://www . data-recovery-software . net/ - works well but not free . Demo will show if the lost folder / files is recoverable . I invested in the software and found on heaps of occasions that it works well .

Cheers
HK
hkeyzer (9827)
549560 2007-05-15 01:28:00 Well, I fixed it! I found an amazing program that was simple to use and cost me nothing . On top of that, some of the recovered data turned out to be much more important than I thought, which amply justified the time and effort .

The CRC error was corrected, file structure restored and all of the lost archive files recovered in less than 5 minutes .

You'll never guess what it was . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


Scroll down for the answer>

























Windows Check Disk, with "fix system files" and "recover bad sectors" options ticked .


Who would have believed it?


Cheers

Billy 8-{) :eek:
Billy T (70)
549561 2007-05-15 02:17:00 Well done! Sometimes we can't see the solutions right under our noses:) linw (53)
549562 2007-05-15 03:33:00 The Forum edit function sure needs attention . I posted in haste then immediately tried to add thanks to all those who offered advice, but depite leaving it running for 30 minutes (with the worm turning in circles) while I had lunch, the edit never got through .

Anyway, if it hadn't been for the advice and encouragement, I probably would have flagged this exercise because I didn't think the data was that valuable, but in the event it was, and very much so, as I am revisiting work last performed in 1996/97 .

The archived data is crucial to establishing both the previous site conditions, and the tenor of the advice and recommendations I made at that time . I would have hated to find that I had inadvertently contradicted myself!

Cheers

Billy 8-{) :thumbs:
Billy T (70)
549563 2007-05-18 11:02:00 The Forum edit function sure needs attention

I second that! I tried twice on Tuesday night to respond to your post but both times the system logged me off while I was typing my reply (and it won't let you start a reply if you are not logged on first) then deleted my reply when I relogged to submit it. I wasn't pleased and gave up. I hope to start a thread on this soon.

PS. Yay! It went in this time.
Robin S_ (86)
549564 2007-05-20 13:10:00 Again PF1 has lost my reply when it made me relog on to submit it!

A chance to reply at last. This is what I was trying to post last Tuesday when PF1 wouldn't let me submit it. Though you have solved your problem (good ol' DOS, eh?) I thought I would put this in in case it comes in handy another time. I seem to recall that the DOS copy command can repair some disc errors on the fly, and it may not need an intact CRC (someone may be able to confirm/deny this). It may possibly have fixed your problem.

WRT your other old archive files, you may be able to test their integrity with the DOS command - copy /b a:\*.* NUL (or should that be >NUL ?). This should read the files in the root directory and copy them to 'nowhere', throwing a 'can't read' error if it can't. Supposedly this would also refresh the record by remagnetising the tracks as it goes. You would need to do this for each folder, although Xcopy /s might work - I've never tried it.

HTH.

I fooled it this time! Before I submitted this the second time I copied it to clipboard, and when it presented me with a blank reply page after making me log on for the 4th time I pasted it back!
Robin S_ (86)
549565 2007-05-21 05:07:00 WRT your other old archive files, you may be able to test their integrity with the DOS command - copy /b a:\* . * NUL (or should that be >NUL ?) . This should read the files in the root directory and copy them to 'nowhere', throwing a 'can't read' error if it can't .

Hmm . . . If it can read it to rewrite it, then it will probably copy to HDD without the intermediate step, but I might give it a try on a floppy after successfully copying to see what happens .

BTW, that should be > nul but I can't see why the nul would be necessary anyway . I though that all that does is suppress the display .

Cheers

Billy 8-{)
Billy T (70)
549566 2007-05-21 12:12:00 Hmm...If it can read it to rewrite it, then it will probably copy to HDD without the intermediate step, but I might give it a try on a floppy after successfully copying to see what happens.

[My take is that this is a way of testing old floppies just to check that they are still readable. If you want to copy them then, as you suggest, skip the test and copy them.]


BTW, that should be > nul but I can't see why the nul would be necessary anyway. I though that all that does is suppress the display.

Thanks for the correction re > NUL. I presumed that Copy requires a destination parameter and that the NUL provides one.

Edit: Oops, my first comment (in [ ...]) ended up inside the quote .
Robin S_ (86)
549567 2007-05-22 03:18:00 NUL is a device. If you don't give copy a destination it often complains that it can't copy a file to itself. ;)

It looks as if the CRC problems might have been in the directory ... and in an unused sector of the directory area (if you don't have any missing files). Any file recovery and file system repairs done by CHKDSK [b[don't[/b] recover data from "bad sectors". You don't get those sectors. The file system "repair" just marks the sectors as bad, so they won't be used again.
Graham L (2)
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