Not formatted? Yes it is!

JoeltheWriterJoeltheWriter
edited August 2004 in Science & Tech
I was typing a document (Word) on my Gateway laptop. I have an Iomega external floppy drive. I was in a hotel and plugged into an outlet. Suddenly, the computer turned off. At first I thought it was an outlet without juice, but there was no 'low battery' warning. So now I think it may have been a power surge. Anyway, when I got home, I plugged it in. Everything works fine. Even all other disks. But not that one. I get a message that the computer can't read the file because the disk may not be formatted--which, of course, it is (it's pre-formatted)--and the document won't open. I have 200 pages on this disk (unfortunately not backed-up anywhere) and I don't want to lose it! Can anyone help? Please!

Comments

  • Dream-WeaverDream-Weaver Nova Scotia, Canada
    edited August 2004
    have you tried opening the document on another computer?
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2004
    What dream weaver said try it on another computer. If that doesn't work try it again sometimes they are just picky.

    If it doesn't work, there is a real possibility that when the power died on it it scratched the disk.
  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    how important is this document to you? cause you may end up shelling out a lot of money to get it back. sounds to me like data recovery might be the only way to go and they're not cheap. there is one thing you might try, i think Word keeps a temp copy to the hard drive somewhere in a temp directory. it might still be there. have you tried opening up Word since this happened? try it, it might prompt you to find out what to do with the file. you might also search your entire hard drive for .doc files or whatever extension Word assigns to temp files.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited August 2004
    word docs end in .tmp. They are created when you open a doc and work on it. However if the document closes propperly the .tmp is deleted, it only remains if the programs crashes so if you start it back up right afterwards it should be there. However if you open another document first you are out of luck.

    Truth be told and the lesson sucks to learn Floppies are un-reliable at best and should never be your primary storage medium for anything of importance.
  • drowddrowd Texas
    edited August 2004
    i have moved almost everything i need to be portable to flash drives. they are dirt cheap now and are flexible and work everywhere. :thumbsup:
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