Help! Diskette Drama

[OhMissScarlett]

Okay, I just finished the first 2000 words of my Earth Day story and saved it to a diskette. Last night when I put the diskette in and tried to open the file, it just made clicking noises and wouldn't open it. Another file on the diskette would open, but not the one I needed. So, I tried it again and the file in question opened, but everything is gone! Is there any way to retrieve my information?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Okay, I just finished the first 2000 words of my Earth Day story and saved it to a diskette. Last night when I put the diskette in and tried to open the file, it just made clicking noises and wouldn't open it. Another file on the diskette would open, but not the one I needed. So, I tried it again and the file in question opened, but everything is gone! Is there any way to retrieve my information?

I'm not a guru, but you might try a scandisk utility. Someof them can fix disk errors without damageing the file.

I'd save that as a last resort though. Hopefully some of our computer savvy peeps will have abetter answer.

 

[OhMissScarlett]

I'm not a guru, but you might try a scandisk utility. Someof them can fix disk errors without damageing the file.

I'd save that as a last resort though. Hopefully some of our computer savvy peeps will have abetter answer.

Okay, thanks Colly. I am by far the least computer savvy person on Earth. If I had my way, I'd be hammering it out on the old Underwood.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Okay, thanks Colly. I am by far the least computer savvy person on Earth. If I had my way, I'd be hammering it out on the old Underwood.

What kind of diskette is it on? a 3.5?

 

[OhMissScarlett]

What kind of diskette is it on? a 3.5?

Yes, it's a 3.5.

 

[logophile]

Yes, it's a 3.5.

Oh my god -
I'm having the same issue.
Only for me, it's all of my data that I need to submit my paperwork for midwifery certification.
Someone tell me there's a way to fix it!
Where's Weird Harold?

 

[OhMissScarlett]

Oh my god -
I'm having the same issue.
Only for me, it's all of my data that I need to submit my paperwork for midwifery certification.
Someone tell me there's a way to fix it!
Where's Weird Harold?

Oh, shit, that sucks.

It just figures with me, that I finally write the something I think is good and then poof.

 

[logophile]

Oh, shit, that sucks.

It just figures with me, that I finally write the something I think is good and then poof.

Someone will have an answer...
Right?
RIGHT??

 

[Kev H]

I know you guys really don't want to hear this, and though no super-geek, I have used computers since 1980. And diskettes have always done that kinda crap. They are easily messed up, and worse still, floppy drives are very poor quality these days (since they are being phased out with good reason). These days, I will burn a CD rather than mess with floppies - if you have another computer or a friend's with a good floppy drive, I'd try to get the information off your diskette using their drive. I find it tends to be the drive itself rather than the floppy (assuming you did not use it as a frisby or coaster or anywhere around a strong magnetic field, heh, don't clip them to your fridge).

 

[OhMissScarlett]

I know you guys really don't want to hear this, and though no super-geek, I have used computers since 1980. And diskettes have always done that kinda crap. They are easily messed up, and worse still, floppy drives are very poor quality these days (since they are being phased out with good reason). These days, I will burn a CD rather than mess with floppies - if you have another computer or a friend's with a good floppy drive, I'd try to get the information off your diskette using their drive. I find it tends to be the drive itself rather than the floppy (assuming you did not use it as a frisby or coaster or anywhere around a strong magnetic field, heh, don't clip them to your fridge).

This is what I suspected, since it seems to be happening sporadically. I guess I need to start my rewrite and get over my CD phobia.

Oh, and I'd love to be able to hook up my old computer and see if it would work, but unfortunately it will not run this version of Word Perfect.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

This is what I suspected, since it seems to be happening sporadically. I guess I need to start my rewrite and get over my CD phobia.

Oh, and I'd love to be able to hook up my old computer and see if it would work, but unfortunately it will not run this version of Word Perfect.

Have you tried copying the file from the dick to the HD? sometimes, you can go into the shell and use the dos copy command and it will copy the file, even if windows dosen't lik eit.

 

[Kev H]

Remember, it does not have to actually run the file - you just need it off of the diskette and onto someplace safe. Even opening it/converting it is better than trying to do it from memory. And surely you have a friend with a computer with a USB port (USB drives are the newest craze in simplistic file transfer - plug and play does not always have to have a sexual connotation ).

Hope you get it squared away.

If you have a USB port on your computer, I cannot recommend this strongly enough: get a $30 USB drive! You take it out of the package and poke it into the slot (figure out which side is the right way up, even have a 50% chance to guess and they almost always mark one side). Your computer will see and recognize the mini hard drive - no drivers or crap required. Then just save your files to that drive (usually down the list, like "D:" or "E:", and always the last on the drive list). You can pop it out of your computer; put it into any USB port on any computer to get at your files - it's a thing of beauty. Just don't lose or step on it, but they are 1000 times tougher than floppies (and the capacity of the smallest is about 100 floppies, give or take some).

 

[OhMissScarlett]

Have you tried copying the file from the dick to the HD? sometimes, you can go into the shell and use the dos copy command and it will copy the file, even if windows dosen't lik eit.

I just did this and nothing comes up in the file. It's still showing that it has 14kb, but no words appear on the screen.

 

[OhMissScarlett]

Remember, it does not have to actually run the file - you just need it off of the diskette and onto someplace safe. Even opening it/converting it is better than trying to do it from memory. And surely you have a friend with a computer with a USB port (USB drives are the newest craze in simplistic file transfer - plug and play does not always have to have a sexual connotation ).

Hope you get it squared away.

If you have a USB port on your computer, I cannot recommend this strongly enough: get a $30 USB drive! You take it out of the package and poke it into the slot (figure out which side is the right way up, even have a 50% chance to guess and they almost always mark one side). Your computer will see and recognize the mini hard drive - no drivers or crap required. Then just save your files to that drive (usually down the list, like "D:" or "E:", and always the last on the drive list). You can pop it out of your computer; put it into any USB port on any computer to get at your files - it's a thing of beauty. Just don't lose or step on it, but they are 1000 times tougher than floppies (and the capacity of the smallest is about 100 floppies, give or take some).

I may end up having to take it to the guy who runs our ISP and see if he can help me with it. I'll definitely have to check into getting a USB drive. Everyone keeps telling me I need one. -Thanks a bunch.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I just did this and nothing comes up in the file. It's still showing that it has 14kb, but no words appear on the screen.

You might try pming vella, she's pretty good with computers.

best of luck with it

 

[R. Richard]

I am assuming that you have Windows on your PC. Access the floppy and RIGHT click on the file. A menu pops up that has an item, "Open With." You get a choice of several programs to open the file with. Try anything that might work. You file might be saved as a spreadsheet file or something like that.

Good luck!

 

[gauchecritic]

14k sounds like a good size for 2000 words.

There are many reasons why it may be that your file appears empty.

It could be a hidden file. It may not be a word file. It may be a corrupted word file.

When you open the file does it open in word without anything there? Try any one of the zillion preferences to make it show up. For example changing font colour. (it could be saved as a white font.)

Copy the whole file across to your desktop and, if it remains the same size, try anything you can think of to read it. Only do this to a copy. Save the actual disk for someone who knows more.

Something that may work is opening the file by clicking on start/recent documents.

 

[impressive]

Have you tried copying the file from the dick to the HD? sometimes, you can go into the shell and use the dos copy command and it will copy the file, even if windows dosen't lik eit.

Heh. Colly said dick.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Heh. Colly said dick.

Pffft

*HUGS*

 

[OhMissScarlett]

Thanks a bunch to everyone for your help. I'm back at it again and hopefully I'll get it soon. If not, at least I'm staring to remember most everything and write it down it notes.

 

[Huckleman2000]

does your version of Wordperfect automatically save? you might want to just start exploring in various subdirectories, looking for files that are named like your document, but with a .tmp suffix, and try opening them with Notepad or a text editor, or even Wordperfect.

If Wordperfect is in its own directory, like c:\Program Files\Wordperfect, look in there and see if there's a 'temp' directory, or some other likely spot for it to keep temporary versions of files. You also might try looking in the Windows\System\temp directory to see if a copy of it is lurking there. Or, do a 'find file' search on anything with a .tmp suffix, or anything with the first few letters of your filename. In WindowsExplorer, set your optoins to show 'hidden files', and you'd be surprised at what things are hanging around.

In the future, it's probably a good idea to save on the harddisk, and then copy to a floppy. That way, if the floppy goes wonky, you still have it on the harddisk.

If you find that you're short on disk space, get one of those free Yahoo or Gmail email accounts, and then just email yourself a copy of the file as an attachment. It can sit up there, and you can delete the copy on your harddisk after you upload it to free up the space.

Dunno if any of that will help, but that's what I would try to do if it happened to me.

 

[rydia57]

Hey, if it's a hardware or software glitch, I think Norton Utilites works better than scandisk. It's also got a windoctor thing to fix things if it's a windoze glitch. Norton has saved my ass... alot. Specially with all the fviruses I bring home from shool! Good luck!

 

[thambok]

Does the file show up in Windows Explorer? Make sure you have it set to show hidden files. Also, make sure you are logged in as a user with sufficient rights to view the file. If you created it on a home computer, you may have admin rights, whereas at work, you probably don't.

If it is visible in explorer, copy it to the hard drive. Then work from there.

If not visible in explorer:

1. Go to Command Prompt.
2. type a:
3. type dir

Does the file show up here?

If not, go to WordPerfect, and see if it sees the file, through the Open... option on the file menu.

If none of the above work, run scandisk on the floppy. This should fly by pretty quickly. Hopefully, there is sufficient space to compensate for bad clusters. And on a floppy disk, bad clusters are pretty much a given.

Another option is to go to the Command Prompt, and "type" the file. For example, if the file is lit.wpd:

C:>a:
A:>type lit.wpd

This should read the raw data on the file. Hopefully, it isn't encoded, and you can access the data.

Another option is to try to read the file from Microsoft Office, if you have it. I am fairly certain that Office reads WordPerfect formatting. If MS Office isn't available, download and install OpenOffice. Its free, its open source, and it has a LOT of functionality.

Hopefully, some of this will help you. If not, you will be much farther along in diagnosing the issue. Keep us posted!