Depending on how long those drives have been laying around it could be an issue of dirty heads... if you don't want to buy a kit<http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000V6Y1W6>, there are youtubes of the process... or
"If you suspect that the heads are just dirty, you can try using a can of spray air to remove any dust from the drive. Floppy drives tend to accumulate an amazing amount of dust. If after removing the dust, the drive still doesn't want to read or write, I recommend unplugging the computer and removing the floppy drive. Next, use a cotton swab with alcohol to clean the drive heads. Alcohol is a solvent and will remove any stubborn dust, oxidation, etc. from the drive heads. Just make sure to let the heads dry completely before plugging the drive back in. [Credit: Brien Posey<http://www.techrepublic.com/article/quick-steps-to-service-a-broken-floppy-drive/>]" From: listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto:listsad...@lists.myitforum.com] On Behalf Of Jon Harris Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2013 4:50 PM To: ntsysadm@lists.myitforum.com Subject: RE: [NTSysADM] Floppy disk recovery tool Disks in question are reporting they need to be formatted so I am guessing they have lost(?) the correct bit/byte at the head of the disk and I don't have my old tools to look at the bit and byte level of a drive. I was so glad when things moved to DVD's guess I should have figured I would get bit by old disks at some point. Jon > From: mailvor...@gmail.com<mailto:mailvor...@gmail.com> > Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 07:13:58 -0400 > Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] Floppy disk recovery tool > To: ntsysadm@lists.myitforum.com<mailto:ntsysadm@lists.myitforum.com> > > On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 10:31 PM, Jon Harris > <jk.har...@live.com<mailto:jk.har...@live.com>> wrote: > > Anyone have a favorite recovery tool for getting to 3.5 and maybe even 5.25 > > floppies. I know they are old but sometimes we don't keep all of the > > archives on current media this is one of those times. > > I presume you're getting read errors on the disk? > > I'd prolly try dd_rhelp (Linux tool). > > Floppy tech is old enough that the snake oil in SpinRite might > actually apply. (Or not. I don't know, I'm just saying that Gibson's > claims aren't obviously bogus for floppies, the way they are for > modern hard disks.) > > -- Ben > >
