regarding floppies

[rushtosri]

Hello everyone,
I'm facing some problems with floppies. I usually download gif files, jpeg files and tutorials from the net at my office and transfer them to my home PC through floppies. I use Win 2000, Professional as my os at home and win 98 as my os at my office. Sometimes it so happens that if i try to copy some files from the floppy which i had downloaded from the net, i get error saying "Data error, Cycle Redundancy Check". I don't know what to do. Can anyone tell me how i can solve this problem? And also tell me is there any software which allows me to check whether the floppies are corrupted or physically damaged or not? Is it possible to correct the errors that occur with the floppies?

Awaiting for ur replies,
Thank you,

Shri.

 

[dkediger]

A common problem, particularly with cheaper floppy drives, is alignment of the R/W head over the data track on the floppy. Basically there is no fix for this - except investing in brand name, Sony, Toshiba, etc floppies.

 

[rushtosri]

Hi there,

Thanks for ur reply. But one thing that i would like to say is that i always use sony floppies itself. I don't believe others. But then too why i face such problems? As soon as i copy the files from the floppy, i erase it. I want to know whether formatting the floppy or erasing its contents a number of times decreases its life or what??

Do tell me ur suggestions.
Thank u
Shri.

 

[Howi]

Cause is probably slight missalignment of heads between the floppy drives.
Formatting disks does not reduce its life but if you are getting errors like this i would pre-format disk before use.
Also try cleening the heads of both drives.

 

[mcvpjd3]

Once you download the files, copy them to your floppy (get some new floppies), and once on the floppy, try and open the files. This will do the CRC check for you before you get home.

Also, your problem could be Floppy Drive Head Alignment. This is basiically where the head alignment of the 2 floppy drives you use aren't quite the same and one may have occasional trouble reading what the other wrote. The only solution to this is to change one of the floppy drives, but that may not solve the problem, in fact it may make it worse.

The best solution (and most expensive) would be to get yourself a CR-RW drive, with re-writable CD's and use them.

HTH

Patrick

 

[dkediger]

Actually - I wasn't clear above but I meant brand name floppy *drives*

I've had poor results when I've run across any floppy drive other than the ones I listed above - plus Teac.

As mcvpjd3 states - a better solution if you do a lot of file transfers this way is to invest in a CDRW or ZIP drive.