Please help me access old floppy discs 🙏

[30birthdaygirl]

Hiya looking for someone super clever please who might be able to help?

We got an external floppy drive to try and access some info from around 20 years ago.

Literally every disc apart from one is coming up with the message:

*A:\ is not accessible.

The request is not supported.*

The data I'm looking for is text based - was generated on a Microsoft system (Windows) and we have Windows still.

One of the discs did actually work and they've all been kept in the same conditions over the years. Older camcorder tape has survived intact from a longer time ago.

I feel like there must be something else I can try.

Anyone?

Bold fail!

Watching as I've got a box of these somewhere - curious to know if it's already too late to look at what's on them again.

Ooh how many have you got @doodlydell ?
I've got around 15 here.

There are various services that will do this for you and I assume have a better set up/more technical knowledge than me! We have a box of about 100 discs and only know that one of them contains some important family documents, so we’re sending them off to a service to deal with when I get around to it. For example look at https://www.cambridgedatarecovery.co.uk/floppy-disk-transfer-to-cddvd/

@MeAndLicorice oh that's interesting thanks!

Presumably if any are empty they won't charge to recover data... I'm not 100% sure all mine have anything on them!

Yeah I’m not sure, worth checking!

I think about 20-30, at a guess - a shoebox with those and a handful of cd roms in.