Data Recovery from Floppy Disk
Wednesday, January 6, 2010 at 2:01 am
Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Ed
(742 messages posted)
In case it helps anyone encountering this thread in the future, here is a list of
old DOS software that I've used in the past, in similar situations, in order to rescue
data from faulty floppy disks.
This stuff goes back to my earliest encounter with MS-DOS, namely MS-DOS 3.0, in
the 1980s.
It really is hit-and-miss with these old programs: the value of each program as a
recovery tool depends on the nature of the damage to the floppy disk (e.g. whether
it's simply data corruption, or is actual physical damage to the disk's magnetic
surface).
Most of these programs worked on both 5.25 inch floppy disks and on 3.5 inch floppies.
These can copy files off a floppy disk where DOS can't read the files; and they mostly
work by copying to a different drive (either copying a single user-designated file,
or copying an image of the whole disk).
These will mostly work only if you are booted to pure DOS.
Here is the list:-
BADDRV.EXE
TRACK0.COM
DFIX.EXE [distributed as: dfix12.zip]
DTPRO.EXE [distributed as: dtpro12.zip] (for 3.5 inch Double Sided High Density floppy
only)
DRS.EXE [distributed as: drs120.zip] (try Simtel)
FlopShow.exe [distributed as: FlopShow.zip] (Floppy Show)
RECOVER.EXE [distributed as: RECOVER.ZIP] (for physically damaged disks)
ARFD.COM [distributed as: ADFD02.ZIP] Analyzer for RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk v0.2
Also try Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier (e.g. version 1.2). This runs in Windows.
Also try commercial programs such as Revive (in Norton Utilities for DOS, under DiskTool),
or Recover (in PC Tools for DOS). These only run in DOS.
This page provides some advice:
http://class.csueastbay.edu/faq/Article_0011.php
In my experience, the most important principle in data recovery is never to work
on the damaged disk itself. Always work on a COPY of the disk, so that if anything
goes wrong you still have the original disk and can try again!
Therefore, try to make a copy of the disk (e.g. on a blank floppy): by using diskcopy
at the command prompt in DOS; or by using Copy Disk from the File menu of Windows
Explorer. Sometimes the copy will work, even when the original is unreadable. (Sometimes
you get "unrecoverable read errors" while trying to make the copy, but even so sometimes
the files will still be recovered on the copy, so keep going if this happens.)
Ed
On Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 8:39 pm, dhm wrote:
>
>There's a freeware program called CopyItAnyway:
>
>"Copy It Anyway is an application that works to copy corrupted or damaged files
that
>can`t be copied or read under normal methods, because of some error in the storage
>device where the file is stored."
>
>I have a copy of it here but I've never tried it.
>
- Written in response to:
- re: Corrupted Backup.002 FAT (dhm: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 8:39 pm)
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