Floppy Help

[SilentVixen]

I found some old floppies. I want to get the data off of them so I can throw them out. There is a file on them that says this:

This disk was compressed using DriveSpace 3, which requires Windows 95.

To use this disk, you must first mount it. To mount it:

1. Run DriveSpace by choosing Run from the Windows 95 Start menu,
and then typing DRVSPACE.

2. In DriveSpace, click the drive that contains this disk,
click the Advanced menu, and then click Mount.

(If this file is located on a drive other than the physical drive
that contains the disk, then the compressed drive is already mounted).

To automatically mount all available compressed drives, click the
Advanced menu, click Settings, and then check the "Automatically mount
new compressed drives" box.

IMPORTANT: To mount and use this compressed disk, you must be running
Windows 95 and DriveSpace 3.

HELP?!?!

 

[RebateMonger]

Edit:
Whoops. I thought the O.P. wanted to just erase the data.

Decades ago, a friend loaned me a 5 1/4-inch floppy disk with some data on it. I took it into the restroom with me and, while washing my hands, the disk fell into the water stream.

Even though I immediately tried to dry it off, the floppy disk was unreadable.

It seemed pretty weird, since you'd expect the disk material to be waterproof, but it had giant warps in the magnetic media after the spill.

In lieu of water, I imagine that pretty much any magnet run across the surface of the disk will do a pretty good number on it. Especially since it's already compressed.

Also, Microsoft's floppy disk format routine physically erases the entire disk, not just the partition table like with a hard disk in XP. The biggest risk would be that the magnetic heads of IBM floppy drives are not well controlled and might leave readable tracks even after an erase or format operation.

 

[Fardringle]

Install Windows 95 or Windows 98 in a virtual machine, then decompress the disks and copy the data using the Windows 95/98 VM.


Or go to www.bootdisk.com and make a win98 boot disk. Since you will be working with floppy disks, it may be easiest to create the boot disk on a CD then insert the floppy disks after the CD finishes booting. You should be able to Add a drvspace.ini file to the boot disk with the following information in the file:

AutoMount=1
FirstDrive=D
LastDrive=E
MaxRemovableDrives=2
MaxFileFragments=101
ActivateDrive=D,E0

When you boot your computer from the boot disk, the drvspace.ini file will load drive D with the compressed info, and use drive E as the host for the compressed files. Adjust to suit your system if you need different drive letters to accommodate your other drives.

When the boot disk finishes loading, type scandisk /mount D : (no space between the D and the : ) or whatever letter your compressed drive is in the drvspace.ini file. That will mount the compressed disk and make the files accessible so that you can copy them to your hard drive.

 

[SilentVixen]

Thanks. Going to try the virtual machine one. Looks a bit easier!