help needed to rescue floppy

WildOscar · 07-12-2010 2:29pm #1

i have a very old floppy with a file saved in desktop publishing format, not sure what DTP prog.

When i try to open it on a xp home sp 3 laptop I get No ID Address Mark Found on Floppy Disk.I have vgoogled that term but not found much that applies. Other floppy disks open so must be disk.

I have tried xcopy /e a: c:\floppy but does not work. That is the X Copy prompt. What is copy prompt?

I am trying bad copy pro evaluation but it does not look good

Is there any way i can image/copy the floppy when not being able to access it

CTU_Agent · 07-12-2010 2:32pm

Have you tried booting to DOS and accessing the floppy from there? Perhaps if you are able to access it via MS-DOS you could copy the file to your system disk?

WildOscar · 07-12-2010 2:36pm

CTU_Agent wrote: »

Have you tried booting to DOS and accessing the floppy from there? Perhaps if you are able to access it via MS-DOS you could copy the file to your system disk?

no i haven't. you cannot boot to DOS in XP can you?
can something like acronis image a floppy it cannot access?

CTU_Agent · 07-12-2010 2:43pm

you will need an MSDOS startup disk. Or a bootdisk of some sort. Check out Bootdisk.com for instructions.

Command Prompt is like a window into DOS from your MS Windows GUI. Not quite the same as booting in MSDOS.

WildOscar · 07-12-2010 2:46pm

CTU_Agent wrote: »

you will need an MSDOS startup disk. .

boot from that is it? i actually have one

CTU_Agent · 07-12-2010 2:49pm

yeah boot from that. It should boot into a command prompt. Its a bit trickier when you have to start taking the startup disk out to replace it with the one with the file on it... But give it a try.

Secondly some of the smarter bootdisks create ramdisks allowing you to swap out the startup disk for the one with the troublesome file on it.

CreepingDeath · 07-12-2010 2:56pm

You might try this piece of freeware I found before.
Most operating systems stop after say 3 bad attempts at accessing a disk sector.

I think this keeps going for as long as you want.

Unstoppable Copier

CTU_Agent · 07-12-2010 3:09pm

I put that term into Google and got a few matches. Apparently this issue is addressed in this MS Article http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811840

CTU_Agent · 07-12-2010 3:10pm

http://www.devhardware.com/forums/storage-devices-80/no-id-address-mark-was-found-on-disk-30828.html

WildOscar · 07-12-2010 3:14pm

CTU_Agent wrote: »

I put that term into Google and got a few matches. Apparently this issue is addressed in this MS Article http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811840

thanks saw that but other disks work ok so must be disk

t0mm13b · 07-12-2010 3:29pm

WildOscar wrote: »

thanks saw that but other disks work ok so must be disk

My suggestion is to get someone who has a floppy drive and Linux and try read the image into a dump file and build an ISO from that image and mount it? something like this

dd if=/dev/fd0 of=floppy.dsk bs=10k count=144

See here for the usage of mkisofs

Then using Daemon Tools Lite, use that to mount the ISO image.... fingers crossed then, you should be able to see the contents of the floppy disk...

AFAIK, there was Aldus Pagemaker, Quark Express, Xara DTP that would have been around at the time...:D

WildOscar · 07-12-2010 3:51pm

t0mm13b wrote: »

My suggestion is to get someone who has a floppy drive and Linux and try read the image into a dump file and build an ISO from that image and mount it? something like this

dd if=/dev/fd0 of=floppy.dsk bs=10k count=144

See here for the usage of mkisofs

Then using Daemon Tools Lite, use that to mount the ISO image.... fingers crossed then, you should be able to see the contents of the floppy disk...

AFAIK, there was Aldus Pagemaker, Quark Express, Xara DTP that would have been around at the time...:D

thanks your link says it must be a bootable floppy? The floppy with the DTP file is not bootable

t0mm13b · 07-12-2010 4:07pm

WildOscar wrote: »

thanks your link says it must be a bootable floppy? The floppy with the DTP file is not bootable

Ahhh..... fcek.....

Am out of ideas on this one mate....

WildOscar · 07-12-2010 4:19pm

t0mm13b wrote: »

Ahhh..... fcek.....

Am out of ideas on this one mate....

no problem thanks for input

bad copy pro scan is still running

bhickey · 07-12-2010 4:24pm

You'll sometimes find that a floppy disk will work on one machine and not on another. Floppy drives are notorious for going out of alignment. The best machine to try it in is normally the machine that last wrote data on it but you might get also just lucky if you try enough different machines.

WildOscar · 07-12-2010 5:10pm

CreepingDeath wrote: »

You might try this piece of freeware I found before.
Most operating systems stop after say 3 bad attempts at accessing a disk sector.

I think this keeps going for as long as you want.

Unstoppable Copier

did not work zero files copied

softdancomputer · 07-12-2010 5:56pm

if you have access to other pc/notebook with a floppy drive, you can try it there.

Capt'n Midnight · 07-12-2010 8:36pm

t0mm13b wrote: »

My suggestion is to get someone who has a floppy drive and Linux and try read the image into a dump file and build an ISO from that image and mount it? something like this

dd if=/dev/fd0 of=floppy.dsk bs=10k count=144

See here for the usage of mkisofs

Then using Daemon Tools Lite, use that to mount the ISO image.... fingers crossed then, you should be able to see the contents of the floppy disk...

AFAIK, there was Aldus Pagemaker, Quark Express, Xara DTP that would have been around at the time...:D

dd will fallover on bad sectors

sudo apt-get install gddrescue
sudo ddrescue /dev/fd0 floppy.dsk logfile.txt

then use photorec to pull known files off the image , they add new file types on a regular basis (if you can't point photorec at the image or loop mount it then just copy the file to a small usb drive or other floppy disk and then try again )

you could also use photorec directly on the floppy - not sure if it will fail over on bad sectors on not

also try the disk on more than one drive in case the drive used to write to it was misaligned

WildOscar · 07-12-2010 10:24pm

sudo apt-get install gddrescue
sudo ddrescue /dev/fd0 floppy.dsk logfile.txt

do not understand this

you could also use photorec directly on the floppy - not sure if it will fail over on bad sectors on not

how do i get it on the floppy? When i open it from the hard drive only the hard drive is visible, cannot see floppy

Capt'n Midnight · 08-12-2010 2:09am

WildOscar wrote: »

do not understand this
how do i get it on the floppy? When i open it from the hard drive only the hard drive is visible, cannot see floppy

the whole point of photorec it doesn't care about files or folders or drive letters it just looks at the 1's and 0's on the disk

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec - download and install it then put the disk in and then run the program as an admin,
can it read raw floppies in windows ? - don't know, don't really care as windows hides you further from the hardware than you'd like for doing data recovery

UNLIKE PHOTOREC SOME OTHER UTILS WILL WRITE TO THE DISK WHICH MAY OVERWRITE THE DATA YOU WANT TO RECOVER

SET THE WRITE PROTECT TAB ON THE DISK TO READ ONLY BEFORE YOU TRY OTHER UTILS.

WildOscar · 08-12-2010 12:11pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

the whole point of photorec it doesn't care about files or folders or drive letters it just looks at the 1's and 0's on the disk

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec - download and install it then put the disk in and then run the program as an admin,
can it read raw floppies in windows ? - don't know, don't really care as windows hides you further from the hardware than you'd like for doing data recovery

UNLIKE PHOTOREC SOME OTHER UTILS WILL WRITE TO THE DISK WHICH MAY OVERWRITE THE DATA YOU WANT TO RECOVER

SET THE WRITE PROTECT TAB ON THE DISK TO READ ONLY BEFORE YOU TRY OTHER UTILS.

when I installed it on the laptop with the floppy it cannot see the floppy drive. I installed it on this pc and it can see the USB drive, no floppy on this

Capt'n Midnight · 08-12-2010 1:46pm

WildOscar wrote: »

when I installed it on the laptop with the floppy it cannot see the floppy drive. I installed it on this pc and it can see the USB drive, no floppy on this

just means that windows won't let you scess the floppy directly, just need to use a non-windows machine

or use a linux live CD

WildOscar · 08-12-2010 1:54pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

just means that windows won't let you scess the floppy directly,

i think it was created on a mac would that be the reason?

just need to use a non-windows machine

do not have

or use a linux live CD

you mean boot into linux and acces floppy from there? could you recommend a linux live version there are so many, thanks
would this do
would the ultimate boot cd work

i tried booting from a floppy but it just went to harddrive even though i went to bios and set up to boot from floppy drive

WildOscar · 11-12-2010 8:21pm

I now have a linux live on the pc but still cannot access the floppy. when i trey i hear it makle noise/spin? but it is not accessible. is tere any other ideas, really need the contents of the floppy. Also i cannot open photorec in liniux. Is there any way i can make it part of linux Thanks

help needed to rescue floppy

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