Member Avatar for chukeej

WinXP how to transfer large file to several (1.4mb) floppies

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Short answer: you need three 1.44 MB floppies. Here’s a safe, simple workflow (with verification and labeling) that works on Windows XP and avoids losing data.

Calculation and margin
3,214 KB × 1024 = 3,293,696 bytes. A standard 3.5" high‑density floppy holds 1,474,560 bytes (the “1.44 MB” you see in Windows). 3,293,696 / 1,474,560 = 2.23 → round up to 3 disks. Leave a small margin for archive headers by splitting to about 1,400k per part.

Recommended steps

  • Create a multi‑volume archive with a free archiver (for example, 7‑Zip). In the archive dialog set “Split to volumes, bytes” to “1400k” and create the parts.
  • Write each part to its own floppy, and label them clearly (e.g., filename.part01 of 03). Mark the order on the disk and keep sleeves.
  • On the target PC, copy all parts into one folder first (do not extract directly from floppies). Open or extract the archive from the first part with the same archiver.

If you used a raw splitter that produces plain numbered chunks, you can recombine with the built‑in copy command (example for Windows):

copy /b file.001 + file.002 + file.003 combinedfile.ext

Verification and cautions

  • Test the archive/extraction before deleting the original. Use the archiver’s “Test” or extract to a temp folder.
  • Floppies are fragile and can fail; keep the original until you confirm a good copy. Format floppies before use and avoid magnets, heat and old media.
  • As others noted (, , ), a USB stick or CD‑RW is far more reliable and less work for future transfers.

Recommended Answers

All 8 Replies

Member Avatar for pritaeas

Try WinRar.

Member Avatar for Reverend Jim

What's a floppy?

Seriously, you can try . It's free.

Member Avatar for BigPaw

There may be more helpful options if you would like to tell us how big the large file is, and what you are going to do with the large file? You don't have to tell us what the large file is.

Member Avatar for tinstaafl

If your system is that old it's still using floppies, I'd strongly suggest getting at least a CD burner. Many computer stores that deal in used equipment are practically giving them away, in fact alot of them send them straight to recycling. 1 cd will hold somewhere between 400 and 600 floppies worth of info. Also there's the issue of the medium life. Even if you can still buy floppies off the shelf they were probably made several years ago and the medium in them just wasn't designed for reliability over the long term. Also there shouldn't be any problems with compatibility between a cd burner and you computer. A USB stick is aslo a very viable option. Even if the computer only has USB 1.1 it will still work with most USB sticks that use USB 2.0. The data transfers will just be slower, but at greatly faster speeds than floppies

Edited by tinstaafl
Member Avatar for stormal1

You'll need to split it up into >1.4mb chunks using any freeware file splitter.
Data residing on floppies is also easily corrupted.
I recommend that you transfer it to a usb flash drive to save yourself a lot of labor.

Edited by stormal1 because: typo
Member Avatar for chukeej

Thanks to all for your suggestions. The file I want to transfer is 3,214 kb. I am still using floppies with my WinXP pc. Although I do not have a built-in floppy drive, I do have an external one which I purchased. I like to use floppies because I can delete and reuse them whenever I no longer need the info.
For some reason, I am not able to successfully transfer the files to CD. I will try to transfer them to a USB and see if that works.

Member Avatar for CimmerianX

Go buy a 4.99 1GB USB. You'll never use a floppy again. I only need the occasional floppy when loading up an older Windows image and need to load 3rd party drivers during setup.

Member Avatar for caperjack

I like to use floppies because I can delete and reuse them whenever I no longer need the info.

a cd burner using cd-rw disk will work the same , cd-rw are also erasable , and you can edit file and save the changes ,when using CD-RW disks .
but i agree a usb thumb drive will be the best and cheapest way to go

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