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Corrupted disks
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gepepa
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Feb 20, 2002, 12:47 PM
 
My Performa running 8.6 has recently begun corrupting disks...so far I have inserted 5 and 4 of them now display the panel: "cannot be read by this computer, etc." when I try to open them. This is a new phenomenum. All disks are Mac formatted. Is there another solution besides Norton Utilities?...and will Norton Utilities work?
live as if you will die tommorrow...learn as if you will live forever.
     
Captain Obvious
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Feb 20, 2002, 02:21 PM
 
Originally posted by gepepa:
<STRONG>My Performa running 8.6 has recently begun corrupting disks...so far I have inserted 5 and 4 of them now display the panel: "cannot be read by this computer, etc." when I try to open them. This is a new phenomenum. All disks are Mac formatted. Is there another solution besides Norton Utilities?...and will Norton Utilities work?</STRONG>
Floppies? It might be the drive so you should look into that. You can use Disk First Aid if that does not work try Nortons or Diskwarrior but that would be just to get the data off the disks. (honestly everyone should have a copy of one of those two programs.) Seeing as they are just floppies you should toss them out if you rescue the information off of them.

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reader50
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Feb 20, 2002, 03:48 PM
 
These disks ... did you originally format (or buy, if they are commercial software) a long time ago? Magnetic codes fade over time. If the disks were last formatted several years ago, the format codes (and your data) may be becoming marginal for reading.

If this is the case, you should copy the data off by any means, reformat the floppies, and copy the data back. Disk Copy would be the best bet for an exact copy, if that is important - and if you can successfully read the disks without an error.

Captain Obvious has a good point though, new floppies are dirt cheap. If it is magnetic fade (rather than the drive), use a fresh floppy unless it's commercial software, and you need the original floppy for a serial number or proof-of-purchase.
     
gepepa  (op)
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Feb 21, 2002, 12:23 AM
 
Thank you...the disks could be over 3 years old...bought new but probably used and re-copied. I will be glad to buy new ones if I can copy the material off the corrupted ones.
live as if you will die tommorrow...learn as if you will live forever.
     
Mac-Guy
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Feb 21, 2002, 03:59 PM
 
If you're getting this error message with all floppies, try trashing your Finder prefs and restarting. Also, make sure Foreign File Access extension is still present. There may be a prefs file with that extension as well (I can't remember). If there is, trash that one too.

Restart and rebuild your desktop when finished.

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BillyB
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Feb 21, 2002, 11:10 PM
 
Or, try this simple solution....

Go to Radio Shack and buy a floppy disk drive Cleaner Kit!
Amazing what an occasional cleaning solves.
--"When you get to the point where you really understand your computer, it's probably obsolete."
     
   
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