Question: Is there any way to retrieve information from a disk that appears to have gone bad? I had a lot of information on it, and when I went to pull the information off I got the message that my computer cannot read from the disk. I tried to scan disk to fix it and it's still not reading it. HELP!!
The IT Guy says:
Yes, there is hope for retrieving the data from your floppy disk. Services that recover your data, such as DriveSavers (www.drivesavers.com), can be expensive (and usually handle hard drive failures more than floppy disk problems.
You might try using some software recovery tools before inquiring about costs with a professional data recovery service.
For Windows users there’s commercial software like File ScavengerTM (http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm) or BadCopy ProTM (http://www.jufsoft.com/badcopy/?rid=google&kid=gc1906). Macintosh users should go to Macintosh: A List of Disk Recovery Tools (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2686), although that list is a bit dated.
Although it is possible that these data recovery software tools will not be able to salvage your data, in all likelihood you will be able to get at least some of your data back. After this experience, my strong advice to you is to STOP USING FLOPPY DISKS! They are notoriously testy about being dropped or otherwise abused, and hold a relatively small amount of data anyway. I suggest you begin using a keydrive (sometimes called a thumbdrive or jumpdrive) instead of a floppy to meet your portable storage needs. These are available in many different sizes and styles. A selection of Lexar jumpdrives is available on Jumpdrives (http://www.digitalfilm.com/jumpdrive).
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