3.5 external drive

[lefty359]

I have some old Sartin programs I wanted to run on my 8.1 Win computer.
It was suggested I buy an external 3.5 drive. I did but disks won' run. Says the may need to be formatted. I'm wondering if it's because this is a 64 bit computer? Any help most appreciated.

[rlopez781]

Lefty,

You have to go to dos to operate the 3.5 external disc drive.
From there,you can copy and load the programs you want to run.
If your programs run on this dos environment,you don't need Dosbox.

Ray

[lefty359]

Ray, I have a win 8.1 computer. Don't think It will do dos. Anyway, I ordered a win98 laptop I found on Ebay. Maybe that will work.
Thanks for taking the time.

[tupper]

Says the[y] may need to be formatted.Whatever you do, DO NOT FORMAT THOSE FLOPPIES!

Never format a disk that has data or software on it, if a Windows OS (or Mac OS) tells you to do so!

As I understand it, DOS programs cannot run under 64-bit Windows without something like Dosbox. There are plenty of Dosbox tutorials on the web and video tutorials on YouTube.

If you have multiple install floppies, you will might need to "install" the software onto another disk before the software runs.

I think you could also boot FreeDos from a USB flash drive and run the software.

By the way, it's a good idea to backup each floppy to its own directory on a hard drive.

[lefty359]

No. I wasn't about to reformat them. But I found a win98 computer on ebay, I go to my computer find the floppy drive, click on it and it says no accessible and not ready. Maybe the disks aren't any good. Frustrating.

[mikesal57]

No. I wasn't about to reformat them. But I found a win98 computer on ebay, I go to my computer find the floppy drive, click on it and it says no accessible and not ready. Maybe the disks aren't any good. Frustrating.

Might want to try an alternative way....


Prepare a Knoppix CD to try to read your disk...

its not that hard....

Mike


P.S.- there is always the possibility that the data is corrupt beyond repair...

All kinds off storage media fails over time...

[wilderness]

In the old days, there were DOS utilities for recovering data from corrupted discs. Should still be available.
Most were HEX based.

Just imagine attempting to access a file of 3-4 meg in size LOL

[lefty359]

Thanks, guys, appreciate the suggestions.