Need help with retrieving data from a DOS 2.11 formated floppy disk

From: Guntis Sprenne <guntis_at_cyberstate.infi.net>
Date: Mon May 7 08:45:56 2001

Depends on the machine it was written in. Many machines back then had
720K floppies, which look like 1.44M floppies except for the 'density'
hole. The 'old' machine would write the HD floppy in 720K format.
The 'new' machine (NT) would sense the density hole and attempt to
read the floppy as a 1.44M.

If possible, use a 'real' 720K floppy (one without the density hole)
to write the data if the drive in the machine is only 720K. That way
the new machine will sense that it is a 720K floppy and read it
accordingly. You could just tape over the density hole on a HD
floppy - just make sure you format it on the 'old' machine before
writing to it.

Of course, if the old machine can really use the 1.44M floppy then the
above won't help much. :-}

AFAIK the floppy format has remained relatively stable. At least
through NT4 and WIN9x.

Guntis.


From: jimmy tsai <jtsai_at_vortek.com>
I need help to solve a problem. Could anyone lends a hand?
The company I work for has a machine that runs on DOS 2.11
There are some data on that machine that we need to retrieve. The
information is transfered from that old machine to a 1.44mb floppy.
When we put the floppy into our pentium winNT4 computer , we can not
read the information on the floppy. The NT os simply says it does not
know what format the files are at.
Now do I need to install a dos 2.11 or is there anyway around it ?
What is the format the dos2.11 writing its files in?
Are there any program that reads in that type of format?
Does any one here have DOS 2.11 that I can download?
Even if I do have DOS 2.11, will I be able to install it or do I need
very old hardware as well?
Received on Mon May 07 2001 - 08:45:56 BST