Help please: "Disk Not Formatted"

Hiya.

Thanks to all for once again helping me out of my computer-related jam. Hopefully soon I will have a new computer and I will have a whole new set of computer-related jams!

Here’s the situation:

My thesis is due on Friday. It’s nearly done except for one final read to look for typos/big gaping holes in logic/etc.

Now, I don’t have a decent computer at home. I have one that used to be attached to a network at a university, so it doesn’t have a printer or Internet access. So, as I have done a hundred times before, I saved a copy of my thesis onto a floppy disk to bring to work, so I could print it on my employer’s dime.

(No I have no ethical issues with this, because of various circumstances too boring to get into here.)

And now, naturally, this computer can’t read the A: drive because the ‘disk is not formatted.’ Which is a complete lie because I have used this very disk, in this very computer, in the past - and this very morning on my computer at home.

(And yes I know it’s stupid to store data on floppies and re-use them and such, but there’s not much else I can do save getting a new computer, which won’t do me any good by Friday.)

I am quite certain that (a) the disk is formatted, and (b) my thesis is on it! This computer is pretty fast and new - if you tell me how, I can tell you exactly how fast and new. So maybe it’s just fussing about having to deal with something from my old and slow computer.

Is there any way I can get the file? I don’t really care about the format that it’s in (currently it’s in Word), I just want to print it and have a look.

Thank you very kindly !

If it was formatted at home, I can think of the following options:
A) The floppy disk drive device on your work PC has failed or is not working for other reasons.
B) The floppy disk media itself has been erased, corrupted or otherwise damaged.

In case of option A, you may find profit by having a co-worker lend you use of his or her PC long enough to email the document to your workstation… etc
In case of option B, I hope for your sake that there is a hard-drive backup of this document.

This thread might be able to help you.

Sometimes as floppy disks age they start to become marginal. Sometimes they will read in one computer but not in another. Try reading the disk in another computer at work, and if that succeeds, copy it onto a new floppy disk.

Whatever you do, don’t format the disk!

Thank you, thank you all. I will try it in another PC.

And thanks for your concern. This is kind of an unfortunate happening but my computer situation has been pretty much like this for eight years of higher education, so my reaction at this point is more world-weary sigh than hair-tearing freak-out. I knew it would have to end like this !

Yes, I absolutely have it stored elsewhere (that is a difficult lesson to learn! But I did so many years ago). And thanks for the warning re: formatting, I will not do so. And I will read that other thread.

This particular floppy is only two years old, I wouldn’t have thought it would break down so quickly !