Lost info on floppy disk (windows xp)

[jackpinen]

I have been storing info on a floppy disk. Up until now every thing has been working OK. But now what I get when I load this disk is about a 30 second delay and a window that says disk is not formatted do you want to format now and I press the no button because I am told all info on this disk will be deleted. I talked with someone at the computer repair shop and she thinks there is a problem with the drive. I have tried the disk on a different computer and still get the same disk not formatted window. Is there a way to retrieve the info from disk so I can save it to another? Thank you for your time Jack

[JohnGray]

Your best bet is to try to find someone who has an old DOS PC and a copy of the Norton Utilities (say v4.5, dating from at least ten years ago). This might be able to read some sectors and retrieve some data. An alternative is a data recovery firm, but this will be Very Expensive...

Diskettes fail; USB Flash Drives fail (but less often); hard drives fail (but even less often). You keep your data on a single medium at your own risk...

John

[WyllyWylly]

You could try SpinRite, which I recently gave a whirl myself. It's very much intended for data recovery. I second John's comments, though - you should check into other storage mediums. Floppies in particular are not reliable.