Dump or recover files from a floppy

[DinohScene]

I've gotten a old 3.5 inch diskette that contains some files that a customer wants back.

I've tried my luck with Recuva which can get half the files back which is the furthest I've gotten.
Other recovery software I tried started throwing errors that the diskette wasn't formatted properly (Windows has the same pop up) or simply not detecting it at all.

From what I was told, the files are still there but the MBR/partition table is corrupted.
I've got a USB diskette drive and a internal one.

Any tips or advice are welcomed!

 

[Joom]

Hate to tell ya, but if a floppy is damaged in any way (inserted upside down at one point, or even jostled a little upon ejection) it's destroyed. They're made of mylar, and are stupid fragile. So, whatever sectors that are still readable are going to be the only ones that can be read. It's kinda why laser and flash technology replaced them.

 

[Kwyjor]

You can try imaging the disk and then looking at the raw image data, though that's kind of a long shot, especially if the files are highly fragmented. What sort of files are they?

If you want to do a really thorough forensic analysis, you can use alternative PC floppy controller hardware. The oldest one in common use was the Catweasel; later came the Kryoflux, and apparently the new hotness is this thing called Pauline.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I've gotten a old 3.5 inch diskette that contains some files that a customer wants back.

I've tried my luck with Recuva which can get half the files back which is the furthest I've gotten.
Other recovery software I tried started throwing errors that the diskette wasn't formatted properly (Windows has the same pop up) or simply not detecting it at all.

From what I was told, the files are still there but the MBR/partition table is corrupted.
I've got a USB diskette drive and a internal one.

Any tips or advice are welcomed!

I find GetDataBack has the highest success rate and recovers the most data, but I don't know how well/if it works with floppies. It's worth a shot.

 

[AncientBoi]

Try copying or extract files to whatever medium you desire. Worth a try.

 

[DinohScene]

Hate to tell ya, but if a floppy is damaged in any way (inserted upside down at one point, or even jostled a little upon ejection) it's destroyed. They're made of mylar, and are stupid fragile. So, whatever sectors that are still readable are going to be the only ones that can be read. It's kinda why laser and flash technology replaced them.

From what the customer told me, he inserted it in a computer and Windows threw a can't read disk must format pop-up.

You can try imaging the disk and then looking at the raw image data, though that's kind of a long shot, especially if the files are highly fragmented. What sort of files are they?

If you want to do a really thorough forensic analysis, you can use alternative PC floppy controller hardware. The oldest one in common use was the Catweasel; later came the Kryoflux, and apparently the new hotness is this thing called Pauline.

Label says Worms 1.5.
The guy is a game programmer and the files on there seem to be jpg files and a executable.

Will attempt coming Tuesday when I'm back at work, cheers!

I find GetDataBack has the highest success rate and recovers the most data, but I don't know how well/if it works with floppies. It's worth a shot.

I think I tried it before but not sure, can always try it, cheers!

Try copying or extract files to whatever medium you desire. Worth a try.

That's what I'm trying to achieve in the first place...

 

[FAST6191]

Most readers and Windows based APIs are going to be relying on what it tells you.

After the obvious check film get rid of fluff then some of the fun raw read stuff made to defeat spiral track anti piracy or do things like dump amiga/non MS DOS systems on Windows would probably be where I start for this one. Get a nice little raw dump there before firing it through whatever file analysis (or your manual hex editor scan to do the same). If it really is just MBR and not anything fun with a file system you might be able to graft an example one on and then do some kind of virtual mount (or write to a real one if you are really bored) but I will join with the others above and note it is rarely going to be that easy.

I have not paid attention to anything here since... probably before the internet became a thing I used so anything but current as far as model numbers, or what people have done with a raspberry pi/arduino bolted onto things, or maybe what might be done with non PC systems if they were a bit more raw in approach. The general principle is the same with any recovery op at this level though -- get a device that will plough through errors, approach from the front and approach through the back where normal stuff might go from the front and give up when it sees an error, take it slowly when it needs to rather than go maximum power all day long, repeat 1000x times to do a probabilistic thing, use any side channels that might be a thing in your medium ( https://hackaday.com/2013/08/19/rescuing-an-sd-card-with-an-arduino/ ) and so forth. Tends to be specialist gear, tends to have a specialist price or take enough time to make that it might as well be, and tends to take a long time during which you have no idea what will happen. However tends to be able to do things where software tricks, no matter how fancy, fail and also tends to be a good last port of call before you start having real fun with hardware swaps and scanning electron microscopes (though such things are getting cheaper).

 

[JaapDaniels]

I've gotten a old 3.5 inch diskette that contains some files that a customer wants back.

I've tried my luck with Recuva which can get half the files back which is the furthest I've gotten.
Other recovery software I tried started throwing errors that the diskette wasn't formatted properly (Windows has the same pop up) or simply not detecting it at all.

From what I was told, the files are still there but the MBR/partition table is corrupted.
I've got a USB diskette drive and a internal one.

Any tips or advice are welcomed!

i'd say try dos4gw to boot, and use the command: unformat a:
it should pop a lot of questions every now and then...
for floppy disks there is a high risk there's nothing to recover since magnetics could've wiped the disc clean (and by that i mean every single bit is reset at once).

 

[Kwyjor]

Label says Worms 1.5.
The guy is a game programmer and the files on there seem to be jpg files and a executable.

Is this supposed to be the same as the well-known DOS game? If the customer just wants to play it again, then it is readily available.
https://www.gog.com/game/worms_united

If this is some sort of rare prototype, then I'm sure the people at Lost Levels or other preservationists will enthusiastically leap to your aid.

i'd say try dos4gw to boot, and use the command: unformat a:

I can't imagine what you think this sentence means.

 

[CMDreamer]

Have you tried already, making a raw copy of the floppy partition (the whole disk)? On linux you can use DD command. On windows you can't do much actually, but try and use a paid software to even try it.
If successful you'd need to analyze the file (the partition copy) and extract its contents based on the disk format expected and file descriptors on it.

It's not an easy task, but its worth trying.

Data recovery is hard, really hard and costly, but if the information is valuable, then the price is not important.

 

[JaapDaniels]

Have you tried already, making a raw copy of the floppy partition (the whole disk)? On linux you can use DD command. On windows you can't do much actually, but try and use a paid software to even try it.
If successful you'd need to analyze the file (the partition copy) and extract its contents based on the disk format expected and file descriptors on it.

It's not an easy task, but its worth trying.

Data recovery is hard, really hard and costly, but if the information is valuable, then the price is not important.

it's 1 3.5 inch disk, means almost certain it's fat16 could be fat32 but i don't think so,ms back in the disk area was your best shot. linux didn't have much back then. i doubt payed software makes any difference when a magnet cleaned the disk.
it's most likely only 1.44mb of diskspace, really i did my best back in the days of my superwildcard (snes copybox), never had any good result with any tool paid or free.
unformat was for fat16 and fat32 best option, it will just ask for each file how it was named since it tries to read without the table of content.
if disk was readable you had undel, but since ms says it's not able to read it anymore...
raw dumping does ultimate the same thing as raw dump, only do rebuild aswell as long as you got the info right, and it's a filesystem known to ms.
use the internal diskdrive if it's pata i mean that's the original way it was done back in the days, flat cable paralel 24 lines if i'm not mistaken.

 

[Kwyjor]

it's 1 3.5 inch disk, means almost certain it's fat16 could be fat32 but i don't think so

The standard floppy disk is FAT12. While you probably could use something other than FAT12, it would almost certainly require exotic utilities to do it, especially since it would leave less free space on the disk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

 

[CMDreamer]

it's 1 3.5 inch disk, means almost certain it's fat16 could be fat32 but i don't think so,ms back in the disk area was your best shot. linux didn't have much back then. i doubt payed software makes any difference when a magnet cleaned the disk.
it's most likely only 1.44mb of diskspace, really i did my best back in the days of my superwildcard (snes copybox), never had any good result with any tool paid or free.
unformat was for fat16 and fat32 best option, it will just ask for each file how it was named since it tries to read without the table of content.
if disk was readable you had undel, but since ms says it's not able to read it anymore...
raw dumping does ultimate the same thing as raw dump, only do rebuild aswell as long as you got the info right, and it's a filesystem known to ms.
use the internal diskdrive if it's pata i mean that's the original way it was done back in the days, flat cable paralel 24 lines if i'm not mistaken.

The standard floppy disk is FAT12. While you probably could use something other than FAT12, it would almost certainly require exotic utilities to do it, especially since it would leave less free space on the disk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

Yes, you both are correct.

I've had very few success rate at recovering information from floppy disks, they are very fragile, not only to tearing but also to scratching and even to weather as they tend to get moist easily.

Back then I had the chance to use those 5 1/4" floppies and for a 360KB/720KB capacity they were enough considering the information that was stored by a regular user. Then the 3 1/2" came with their doubled capacity (1.44 MB most of them), smaller size and a plastic body with a metal protected window, they changed user experience completely. I can rememeber how noisy they are.

Which reminds me of this (sorry to get off topic):

 

[JaapDaniels]

The standard floppy disk is FAT12. While you probably could use something other than FAT12, it would almost certainly require exotic utilities to do it, especially since it would leave less free space on the disk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

you're right, my 386 16mhz, 8mb ram and 40mb hdd dos 6.0 pc just gave me fat as recall it to be, but could've been fat12.
it's been a long time ago i touched the disks.

Yes, you both are correct.

I've had very few success rate at recovering information from floppy disks, they are very fragile, not only to tearing but also to scratching and even to weather as they tend to get moist easily.

Back then I had the chance to use those 5 1/4" floppies and for a 360KB/720KB capacity they were enough considering the information that was stored by a regular user. Then the 3 1/2" came with their doubled capacity (1.44 MB most of them), smaller size and a plastic body with a metal protected window, they changed user experience completely. I can rememeber how noisy they are.

Which reminds me of this (sorry to get off topic):

ah so he didn't mean diskettes he meant floppies, the soft ones you could bend.
well good luck witch any tool recovering those... being static charged touching those could've erased the floppy.
those ehm went and go quick, in that case most pc's had those at b: not a:

 

[Kwyjor]

ah so he didn't mean diskettes he meant floppies, the soft ones you could bend.

No, sir, 3.5" disks (like the one referred to by the OP) and 5.25" disks are both called floppies. The term refers to the piece of material inside, which is flexible, as opposed to a hard disk platter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk

Back then I had the chance to use those 5 1/4" floppies and for a 360KB/720KB capacity they were enough considering the information that was stored by a regular user. Then the 3 1/2" came with their doubled capacity (1.44 MB most of them), smaller size and a plastic body with a metal protected window, they changed user experience completely.

5.25" floppies were also readily available with a 1.2 MB capacity, and 3.5" drives limited to 720 kb were not at all uncommon.

 

[JaapDaniels]

No, sir, 3.5" disks (like the one referred to by the OP) and 5.25" disks are both called floppies. The term refers to the piece of material inside, which is flexible, as opposed to a hard disk platter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk

5.25" floppies were also readily available with a 1.2 MB capacity, and 3.5" drives limited to 720 kb were not at all uncommon.

around here, it might not been official term but we called the ultra flex ones (720Kb ones) floppy and the 1.44Mb diskette (or just disk) for it feels and sounds stronger.
sorry about confusing, didn't use those disks in a long tome (my snes no longer has a superwildcard, the firmware got corrupted and the battery leaked, replaced it for a sd2snes pro)

 

[Nygma]

Try to build an exact copy with WinImage to an image file and work from there.

winimage . com / winimage.htm (I cannot post hyperlinks)

Let us know how far you can go with it. Keep trying as at some point you might be fully successful.

diskette dirt and cleaning

My standard practice on 8" and 5.25" floppy diskettes, is to inspect visually for mold, through the drive head access hole I rotate the media in my hands inside the envelope / sleeve. (Media is the Mylar disk in the sleeve.) Mold can be removed with a wad of clean clean clean cotton ball containing 90-something% isopropyl alcohol. (Use antiseptic cotton balls, cosmetic / cheap cotton balls may contain oils.) Wipe toward the hub from the outer edge. Rotate, inspect, wipe; repeat. This is sufficient for diskettes with relatively few spots of mold. For extensive mold damage, I have more notes below.

In the sections below, I discuss that method and other methods for inspection and cleaning, and notes about mold or debris on media. Note: a 5.25 inch or 8-inch diskette consists of a doughnut of plastic with the magnetic coating called "the media", which rotates in a sleeve or jacket. - Herb

Do not keep this floppy to anything magnetic.

 

[DinohScene]

Cheers mate, Will post updates!

 

[KleinesSinchen]

I'll just throw some names here:
VGA-COPY, Teledisk, AnaDisk

Use a computer with DOS (or Windows 9x in DOS mode)

 

[DinohScene]

Update:

Just spoke to the customer again, he would love to have the files back since he didn't distribute the game back then.
Anyone knows how I can get into contact with the people that do the dumping for Hidden Palace/Lost Levels and those preservation communities?