Question about the A-Drive

Hello,

When I had my old PC, using Windows 98SE, I saved a lot of photos and some other files on floppy disks because that PC didn't have a CD-RW drive.

I am using Windows XP Home now, and tried to access the files on my floppies and Windows tells me Access Denied....No ID information found, and I am completely unable to access my floppy disks.

Does anyone know what is causing this problem, and what do I need to do to turn this around and gain access to the files I stored on my floppies.

I was hoping to take the pictures off the floppies and the copy them to a CD, but I can't even gain access to them, that is not possible.

Any suggestions appreciated.
Thank you very much.

 

What format did you save the files under? If you used MS Backup in Win98, you'll not be able to access them in XP. What are the file extensions on the floppies?

If that isn't the problem, does your floppy drive work for any other files that you create? It's a long shot but sometimes floppy drives don't track other floppy drives well.

Encryption and security access is another possibility.

 

Hello Surferdude2

I know I didn't use MS Backup when I did the floppies. I just copied the files from the hard drive to the A-drive and onto the floppies. The photos were all in .jpg format, and I would assume they are still in .jpg format on the floppies.

I have never used the A drive on this PC since I bought it 2 years back. It was just recently that I thought to copying the pictures back onto the PC and then onto a photo CD. And then when I did, I encountered this problem.

I have not even tried to copy any files from this PC onto a floppy because it's so much easier to just burn the files onto a CD. And what if I wanted to reformat these floppies to use them for something else? If I can't even get the A drive to access them, then it won't reformat them either, right?

 

Ok, you'll need to rule out a defective floppy drive by formatting a floppy and seeing if you can copy and retrieve data from it. If so, then try your unaccessible floppies on a friend's floppy drive to see if they're accessible.

I have had floppies from one machine to not work on another. It usually says, "The disk is not formatted, would you like to format it now?" Answering yes is a good way to lose your data. It seems that the difference in the head alignment is the factor that causes this.

So, to answer your other question, if tracking was indeed the problem, you could re-format these disks on your present machine and they will probably work just fine. You'd lose all of the existing data of course.

 

Good idea SurferDude2

I will give it a try and see how it goes. I'll get back to you when I can run this trial test.

Something has come up, and I will be out of town until Monday, so this will have to wait until then. But I will definitely be checking it out.

Thank you so much for your help and suggestions.