Terry - I have further information about the situation and this isn't
the time for sarcasm. I'm a teacher, those computers were donated
years ago and the floppy drive isn't external - do there is no option
to use something else more up to date. I am not in a position to
consider if an EXTERNAL CD-RW is the answer to my problem (or not).

YES - floppies are ancient technology, as are the computers I'm having
trouble with... does this mean you're going to donate some modern
technology to my classroom? LOL Then you won't need to scoff at my
situation.

FYI: I tried to reformat the floppy on the computer that didn't like
it, but it gave me a message that the floppy was a damaged. The other
two computers didn't reject the floppy, but when I transfered it to my
"new technology" computer which usually reads such old technology, the
floppy didn't have any information on it. Maybe the floppy was flawed,
but it was straight out of the same box which has produced other
floppies that worked on those computers - so maybe it's a factory
problem, maybe not. I was hoping for a little "more obvious"
information though... does this mean you think 3 computers are suddenly
out of alignment or do you mean the computer reading it is suddenly out
of alignment?



I'm unclear about what reading directly from a floppy drive means. Can
you understand that in the entire time I've used floppies I've done
that without any problem - EVER? I know what you mean by direct write,
but I'm unclear what you mean by direct read. I've never heard of
saving a file to HD before reading, but my problem was that the files
didn't appear on the floppy in the first place - so it wasn't even an
option.

Glad you brought up ancient technology though. My old/home win98
finally died this week (haven't given the HD a good, christian burial
though, because I need to recover data). Soooo looking at new comptuer
options - I see an internal floppy isn't an option in many cases. I
have lots of floppies that I need to read, so I want an internal floppy
drive, but it isn't available on a lot of the Dell options. :\

My BIG question is about the other options. I' stayong with 80 GIG.
No reason to upgrade from that - but I'm wondering if the I should
choose the DVD-RW/DVD option with appropriate software (otherwise it
wouldn't be an option). However, I need to know what situations I
would use it for.... and are they legal or illegal?

Are you up to helping me with things like selecting dual/single channel
SDRAM?

I'm thinking of selecting (OS) XP-Pro, because it would be convienent
to be able to access my work computer from home and vice versa... but I
only want "Home Office" because I need Power Point, but don't need
anything fancier than Word and Excel beyond that.

Feedback is welcome.

TIA
sf
````````


TF wrote:
If this was a preformatted disc, it would suggest that the drive you
tried
it on is out of alignment. I expect that if you did a full format of
the
floppy on that drive, I expect it would have worked. Floppies are
mechanical
and very ancient technology.

However, don't do it. You should NEVER save or read a document
directly
from/to a floppy. Always use the HDD and then COPY to or from the
floppy.

The best solution is to throw away the floppy drive and use something

designed for the 21st Century.

--
Terry Farrell - Word MVP
http://word.mvps.org/

"sf" wrote in message
oups.com...
: I've had the experience of trying to save a doc on a floppy that I
knew
: was formatted and getting that message. When I moved to a
different
: computer, I could save onto the disk... so what's wrong with the
: computer that won't let me save to removable disk?
:
: sf
: ``````````````