How to Back Up Important Floppy Disks

Note: This article was originally written on reich-consulting.net. Reich Web Consulting has narrowed its focus to the web and no longer offers tech support services, so we’ve moved all of our tech support content off-site. We hope you find this article useful. It is provided as-is, and we will no longer provide support on this topic.

Much to the displeasure of everyone in the IT industry, some software companies still insist on utilizing floppy disks. Rarely are floppies used to distribute software, but they are used for anything from boot disks and recovery disks to the distribution of software licenses. Ironically some of your business’ most critical files could be stored on floppy disks, the most undependable of all media. To some this tip might be a no-brainer, but regardless, it may one day save your hide.

Copy that Floppy!

Today I ran into a situation where I needed to reinstall a software package which can only be installed when a floppy disk containing a license file is present. I inserted the floppy and, not surprisingly, it was no longer readable (how a prolonged stay in a file cabinet kills a floppy I’m not quite sure). Luckily the repair estimating software I was installing isn’t critical to our day-to-day operations at the school, but you can imagine if I worked in industry the absence of this software would bring day to day business to a grinding halt, and I might even be fired for negligence. It could be days or even weeks before the company could mail me a new license disk or email a new license file.

Luckily I wasn’t negligent at all. When the floppy came in the mail years ago I had copied the license files to a network drive. I formatted a new floppy, copied the files, and was able to reinstall the program in minutes rather than waiting for a replacement license from the company.

In some instances, such as boot disks or license disks with data written to specific disk sectors (older software sometimes did this) simply copying the files from a floppy disk isn’t enough. You’ll need a one-to-one duplicate of the disk. Don’t just copy the floppy; the duplicate stands an equal chance of failing as the original. Use a tool to create disk images, such as rawrite to back up the floppy to an image file on a more reliable media, such as a hard disk or CD-ROM.

Originally published at https://www.reich-consulting.net.