ResQfloppy

The ResQfloppy appliction provides a set of tools that will let recover inaccessible data from bad floppies. Attempting to recover such data with disk repair utilities, will cause further and irreversible damage to the floppy, ruining all chances to recover anything from it.

ResQfloppy will first make an exact clone of the bad floppy and let you work on the clone, without further deteriorating the already ruined disk.

ResQfloppy was originally written to recover a friend's book manuscript from a bad set of floppies.

Probably the worst mistake people make when attempting to recover Data from inaccessible disks, either floppy or hard, is that they perform operations on it directly. This usually worsens the problem unless they know exactly what they are doing.

The first rule in data recovery is to never write directly to a bad Disk, nor attempt fixing the damaged media, until you have regained full functional read/write access to it, and you have copied all of the files from it you need.

When you are unable to access ( read/write ) a floppy the problem is usually the magnetic media has defective sectors. Floppies usually develop defects in those areas where data is written. Sometimes, however, the physical sectors where the boot sector or root directory are placed become defective. If the sector is critical for accessing the floppy, such as the boot sector or root directory, then the system will be unable to read the floppy at all. Yet if you can read or write to it, then the floppy may only have defects in areas where the data is written. Portions of your data, typically one or more files, are then inaccessible.

The latter problem can SOMET IMES be recovered using a disk or file system repair utility, such as CHKDSK, or SCANDISK, or a third party utility, such as Norton Disk Doctor. When these tools are used, however, the changes are generally irreversible. If the result is worse than the original condition, then there may be no way to reverse the changes you have made.

For this reason, it is helpful to prepare an exact replica (clone) of  the source floppy on media in good condition, such as on another floppy without any media defects. Recovery can then proceed without concern that the recovery effort itself may make the situation worse. Any disk editing tools or methods at your disposal can be used on the clone.

Unfortunately disk copy programs typically abort when trying to read, copy, or duplicate a floppy with media defects. Even though there may be completely intact files on it, copy tools generally abort preventing users from copying or accessing even intact files.

RESQFLPY solves this problem by producing an image file of a SOURCE floppy even when it has defective sectors in data area, root directory, or boot sector. Defective sectors are ignored, or read by force where possible, during generation of the image file.

RESQFLPY outputs a display to the screen during the copy operation and defective sectors will be indicated and counted. This display reveals the extent of the damage on the disk.

RESQFLPY can copy the image file to a freshly formatted floppy without any media defects producing a workable CLONE of the original. There is no limit on the number of clones you can make from the same image file.

It is now possible to try as many methods as you wish on the clone without further deteriorating the already defective source floppy. When the boot sector of the source floppy is bad then you can install a fresh one to the clone with FIXBOOT /S (force floppy size). This is usually enough to access the cloned floppy, if a bad boot sector was what prevented access to the source.

If the source disk has media defects in the FAT or root areas then you can try CHKDSK, or SCANDISK on the cloned disk, to attempt recovery of the files. If these DOS tools are insufficient, then try any other disk editing tools you may have such as DISKEDIT on the clone. Since RESQFLPY allows you to produce as many clones as you wish, you can attempt as many recovery trials as are needed without any risk of further harming the original source diskette.