PC won't read my floppy disk

[mzea]

Please, I need your help!

Today, I was working on a paper on a PC. Later on, I returned to the computer lab and I used a MAC to print my data. I was able to print all my data. Then I wanted to change some numbers on my data, the mac gave me an error message and as usual it froze.

Then I went to a PC to keep working on my paper but I could not open my disk b/c PC won't read it at all. If I use a MAC, I can't access my disk either!

What can I do? Is my data lost? What can I do to recover my data? I run norton antivirus on my PC and it tells me that it cannot scan the disk because it's locked by some disk utility.

Thanks in advanced,

Manuel

[plummo]

No your data is not lost it is still on the disk. You will need to image the disk using a disk utility such as Nortons Professional or Disk Image. There are a number of companies that offer this service if you can't do it yourself.

Hope this helps.

Plummo

[Harry]

If his floppy disk went bad, are you sure that he can still make a disk image of it?

I'm assuming that the floppy is a PC formatted disk because as far as I know, the Mac can read PC formatted floppys but the PC cannot read Mac formatted floppys unless things have changed or there is an extra utility on the PC. So use scan disk on the floppy and see what it tells you.
Also, make sure the tab on the floppy is closed but I don't think that is the problem.

There is a freeware program which I have called Floppy Disk Recoverer 1.0. I have never used it but I was going to test it on a bad floppy I have. I'll let you know if it works.

[mzea]

Unfortunately, yes! The data on my disk was lost. I used a recovery program to read my disk and nothing was in there! I had to type the whole thing! Man... You gotta love those MAC

Thanks for the feedback!

[Harry]

I don't know what the problem is with the Mac but it shouldn't be freezing up like that and I have yet to hear of a Mac destroying a floppy disk. On top of that, Macs don't have Registry's that get constantly corrupted. Someone should take a look at it. Maybe it has an extension conflict which can easily be remedied.

Floppy disks are another story. I have had numerous floppys go bad on me and I don't trust floppys at all. Every single important item that I have on a floopy like a bootup disk and Partition Magic and Drive Image, I make a copy of and put on my Mac for safekeeping should the PC breakdown.