Member Avatar for pjb999

Someone brought an old floppy disk into the shop that's apparently unreadable. (It's not a mac disk) So far I've found several shareware/demos that don't allow saving of the file. I guess if client's willing to pay, we could buy one, but we only have one machine that even has a floppy drive and I doubt we're going to have ANY call for it in the future....

One or two actual freeware programs failed to find anything; one demo-ware program CLAIMED to find a file but it didn't have the filename I was expecting...

Does anyone know of a free program that actually works? I was thinking of something like the cd recovery programs that work bit by bit like unstoppable copy? I just checked and apparently it DOES work with floppies, I'll try it. Any other suggestions?

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Quick, practical plan that follows what others started here (check drive vs disk first, don’t write to the original media) and then works from a safe image copy.

Start with simple diagnostics. Try the suspect disk in a different, known-good drive and try a known-good disk in your drive (this isolates drive vs media). Inspect the shell and shutter for cracks, and listen for grinding or sticking when the drive spins; if the disk smells moldy or you see loose black oxide, stop — that is a physical-failure case and risks making things worse. PhotoRec/TestDisk and similar tools assume you will not write to the damaged media; work read-only and make an image first. (cgsecurity.org)

Make a raw image with a block-level copier that tolerates read errors (GNU ddrescue is built for this). Example Linux workflow (replace device path as needed):

sudo ddrescue -n -b 512 /dev/fd0 floppy.img floppy.log
sudo ddrescue -d -r3 -b 512 /dev/fd0 floppy.img floppy.log

Use the map/log file so you can resume and so ddrescue focuses retries on bad areas rather than re-reading good sectors. Work from the image, not the original. (gnu.org)

Recover from the image with filesystem-aware and signature-carving tools. TestDisk can repair FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 structures and sometimes restore filenames; PhotoRec carves files by signature when the filesystem is damaged (it is read-only and writes recovered files to a separate folder). Try TestDisk first to recover filenames, then PhotoRec for carved data if needed. (cgsecurity.org)

Hardware tips and a couple of low-risk tricks: clean the drive heads with a proper floppy-head cleaning disk or a lint-free swab lightly moistened with high‑purity isopropyl alcohol — do not aggressively scrub the disk surface. If you need to examine the image on Linux, attach it to a loop device (losetup) or mount read-only (mount -o loop,ro) so you can browse the contents without touching the source. If the media shows sticky-shed, heavy oxide loss, or the drive physically chews the disk, stop and consider a professional lab — those conditions are beyond software fixes. (retrotechnology.com)

Notes tied to the thread: this follows ’s drive-vs-media sanity check and builds on the free/open tools others mentioned; ’s constrained hardware makes imaging first especially important. If the data are very sentimental (family manuscript, irreplaceable work), weigh a pro lab early — cheap software attempts can sometimes accelerate physical failures.

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Member Avatar for BigPaw

You could try some of these...

Member Avatar for pjb999

Thanks for those. I know Sanmaxi won't let you save anything. I am a bit dubious about it, I did try it and the file it alleged it found did not have a filename like I was expecting. Many of the others I hadn't heard of, so look forward to trying.

Unfortunately, many of them seem to be for-sale products, I don't know if we're going to want to purchase something for a one-off job...but thanks.

Edited by pjb999
Member Avatar for sophiaya

unreadable....i think you should ask some professional one to recover the data

because the computer can't read it, then you can do nothing on it.

Member Avatar for pjb999

I doubt the customer wants to fork out that sort of money, even if it is her deceased mom's never-published romance novel.

Member Avatar for caperjack

you are sure it the disk and not the drive with the problem ,you tested the dive with another disk ,

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