[Eric P.]

Morettina wrote:
My parents are also encountering problems opening Word files on a new Vista
PC. These files were saved on a Windows 98 PC onto floppies using Word.
What is strange though is that even in the Vista Windows Explorer, the files
don't even show up! If they put the floppy in the Win98 PC, the files
they've saved on the Vista PC don't show up, and vice versa.

I have to say that they (and me too) have often saved files to floppy as a
backup (or to take on the road) from inside Word and never had problems with
them. I guess we've been lucky.

But what I'm stumped with is that Vista doesn't seem to even see the files
that were saved on the Win98 PC. Is there something different between the 2
operating systems that is causing this?

Marie

I don't have Vista myself but Windows XP has the same problems.
Apart from loose cables, defective floppy drives or misaligned floppy
disks which are sure reasons to fail there maybe reasons by changes in
XP and Vista.

Firstly every floppy should have an ID byte (like F0 or F9) in the
bootsector.
This ID byte depends on the floppy size, it is F0 for an 1.44MB floppy.
Not every program that formats floppies did enter the by XP and Vista
now required ID byte that was ignored by Windows 98.
This was especially many times the case with the commercially
preformatted floppies many people bought in the past.

Secondly the floppy driver inside Windows XP and Vista was redesigned to
not accept all old floppy sizes for writing or sometimes also reading.

Info from the MicroSoft Knowledge Base

Article ID : 309623
Windows XP supports the following floppy disk formats: €¢ 1.44 megabyte
(MB) 3.5" floppy disk (read, write, format)
€¢ 720 kilobyte (KB) 3.5" floppy disk (read, write only)
€¢ 1.2MB 5.25" floppy disk (read, write, format)
€¢ 360KB 5.25" floppy disk (read, write, format)

Article ID : 140060
The following table lists the most common media descriptor bytes:
Byte Capacity Media Size and Type
-------------------------------------------------

F0 2.88 MB 3.5-inch, 2-sided, 36-sector
F0 1.44 MB 3.5-inch, 2-sided, 18-sector
F9 720K 3.5-inch, 2-sided, 9-sector
F9 1.2 MB 5.25-inch, 2-sided, 15-sector
FD 360K 5.25-inch, 2-sided, 9-sector
FF 320K 5.25-inch, 2-sided, 8-sector
FC 180K 5.25-inch, 1-sided, 9-sector
FE 160K 5.25-inch, 1-sided, 8-sector
FE 250K 8-inch, 1-sided, single-density
FD 500K 8-inch, 2-sided, single-density
FE 1.2 MB 8-inch, 2-sided, double-density
F8 ----- Hard disk

Best is to try the floppy in a computer using Windows 98.
If the floppy is readable transfer the data to a medium that works in
Vista like an in Windows Vista formatted floppy or memory stick that
also works in 98(SE?).