Backing up floppies

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I prefer to store financial data on floppies rather than on my hard drive. Recently I went to back up a floppy and when I inserted the destination disk
it told me “Windows cannot write to the destination disc. Make sure it is not marked as read only, damaged, or in use”.
I tried 3 different disc on which I had earlier backups (which always used to work OK) , and then a brand new one with nothing on it.
All with the same results. I wouldn’t have thought that a new disc would be marked read only

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Hopefully, you still have the source data.

This is not a direct response to your query, but I strongly recommend you switch from floppy disks to something more durable – provided your hardware supports it. It is possible that you are experiencing hardware failure.

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I second Malcom’s recommendation to switch backup media. Floppies are better than nothing but compared to CDs/DVDs, external disk drives, or even USB flash drives they are extremely unreliable. External hard drives are relatively cheap today and the most reliable medium. Check your favorite internet retailer, favorite local electronics store, or do a search for “usb hard drive”. You’ll find an extensive list almost anywhere with varying prices and capacities.

Joe

--Joe

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Floppy disks fail just sitting around doing nothing – don’t use them.
A hard disk is much more reliable and will even survive fire if it doesn’t get too hot.
The best method is probably CD stored off-site.

Whatever method you use, store the original data on hard disk and use the other method to backup that data. 2 copies are always better than 1.
If you are worried about other people accessing the data, encrypt it with TrueCrypt – just don’t forget the password.

cheers, Paul

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I prefer to store financial data on floppies rather than on my hard drive. Recently I went to back up a floppy and when I inserted the destination disk
it told me “Windows cannot write to the destination disc. Make sure it is not marked as read only, damaged, or in use”.
I tried 3 different disc on which I had earlier backups (which always used to work OK) , and then a brand new one with nothing on it.
All with the same results. I wouldn’t have thought that a new disc would be marked read only

I have to ask the obvious.
Are you sure the Read only “window” isn’t opened on the floppy?
Looking at the disc, the window in the right side with the shutter should be closed to make them writable.
With it opened the floppy is write protected.

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I am not sure what the window is. Is it the small opening at the bottom of the disc, or is it the sliding bit at the top?
I agree that if we are talking about long-term storage, it would be best to use a CD or external drive. But I use
the floppies for active data entry and keeping. And once in awhile I will copy to another disc as backup.
It is so easy to copy usually. And I can’t see why a brand new disc wouldn’t be writable.

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I am not sure what the window is. Is it the small opening at the bottom of the disc, or is it the sliding bit at the top?
I agree that if we are talking about long-term storage, it would be best to use a CD or external drive. But I use
the floppies for active data entry and keeping. And once in awhile I will copy to another disc as backup.
It is so easy to copy usually. And I can’t see why a brand new disc wouldn’t be writable.

It’s the little “sliding bit” on the top right of the disc. It should be CLOSED.
It’s made movable so that you could write protect it from accidental erasing or overwriting any important data.

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I agree that if we are talking about long-term storage, it would be best to use a CD or external drive. But I use
the floppies for active data entry and keeping. And once in awhile I will copy to another disc as backup.
It is so easy to copy usually. And I can’t see why a brand new disc wouldn’t be writable.

You know, for $20 you can get a USB flash drive that will hold thousands of floppies worth of data. All you need is one open USB port. For the type of storage you are talking about here, I think this would better suit your needs.

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OK. That is closed on every disc I have. If I slide it to the left, it just slides back. I have never had to make a disc write protected, but
if I did, how is it kept in that osition?

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That is the wrong tab. there is a small black plastic tab in the corner of the disk.

cheers, Paul

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Hello,
Please see attached photo below:

I marked the Write Protection tab that we are talking about with a red circle.
This tab should be towards the top of the disk to enable Writing to the disk. (The tab in the photo is in this position.)
If this tab is down, then the disk is Write Protected and you will be able to see a small square hole or “window”.

This concept was also used on audio cassette tapes and VHS videos.
There was a tab that you would remove to prevent from accidentally recording over or erasing the data.

Not to nag you some more, but I would also recommend using CDs, DVDs, Hard Drive, or Flash Memory rather than floppies.
CDs are cheap, and if you buy CD-RWs you could reuse them, and they hold 700 MB of data where as a floppy only holds 001.44 MB.
I have not had good luck with USB Flash Drives though, but oddly enough I have no problems with my USB Hard Drives.

If you still prefer to use floppies, I have a bunch of new ones in a case that I could sell you cheap……….let me know……

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Hello,
Please see attached photo below:

I marked the Write Protection tab that we are talking about with a red circle.
This tab should be towards the top of the disk to enable Writing to the disk. (The tab in the photo is in this position.)
If this tab is down, then the disk is Write Protected and you will be able to see a small square hole or “window”.

This concept was also used on audio cassette tapes and VHS videos.
There was a tab that you would remove to prevent from accidentally recording over or erasing the data.

Not to nag you some more, but I would also recommend using CDs, DVDs, Hard Drive, or Flash Memory rather than floppies.
CDs are cheap, and if you buy CD-RWs you could reuse them, and they hold 700 MB of data where as a floppy only holds 001.44 MB.
I have not had good luck with USB Flash Drives though, but oddly enough I have no problems with my USB Hard Drives.

If you still prefer to use floppies, I have a bunch of new ones in a case that I could sell you cheap……….let me know……

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OK, that picture clarifies a lot. When a floppy is inserted in the A drive, the “sliding bit” is facing into the drive. Therefore, I was interpreting that as the top of the disc, and could not see anything to slide open. So when I held the disc what I would call upside down, the slot is on the right.

If this post turns out to have all of Hnady Andy’s post attached, sorry. I just highlighted a key sentence, but it looked to me that it was going to include the whole message.

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Glad my illustration helped, or did it?
I see that you now understand what “tab” we were talking about, but have you tried it and were you successful?

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Now that I know where the tab is, I can see that none of the disc I was unable to use as back up had that tab open. So it must have been that the discs were faulty. But I can’t understand why a unused one would be.
I’ll have to try another new one.

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Now that I know where the tab is, I can see that none of the disc I was unable to use as back up had that tab open. So it must have been that the discs were faulty. But I can’t understand why a unused one would be.

The drive may be faulty. Do you have another floppy drive you can try?

(Maybe this thread should be on the Hardware board if we start going down that road…)

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Floppy Disks can become faulty if they were near any source of magnetism even a very weak magnetic pull could affect them.
The same goes for credit cards with the black strip on the back of them. I knew someone who received a business card, they placed the card in their wallet only to find out later that their credit cards wouldn’t swipe when making purchases. I told him that the culprit was the business card which was also magnetic so that you could put it on a refrigerator.

Also the original tab that you slid open, or the big tab is used to protect the disk from the elements mainly dust or fingerprints.
It is best to leave this tab alone.

Any reason in particular why you prefer floppy disks? Just curious.

Take care,
HandyAndy

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