AKiCiF: Tech help

[rolanni]

O, Internets, I have a disk.

It is an old disk, designed to be read by one of those ancient, how-do-you-say, DeeOeS computers. It is, this disk, of the 3.5 inch persuasion.

The label on the disk is: Medias Res Chapters 1-44 DOS

I strongly suspect that the files on this disk were written in WordStar. For DOS. Just to be clear.

Is there any way, O, Internets, to recover these files?

Is there any affordable way to recover these files?

Why do I ask?

I'll tell you.

Once upon a time there was a book being written about two characters named Val Con and Miri, and that book was called Medias Res, because we couldn't think of a title. Sort of like George. That book eventually became better-known, if not notorious, as Carpe Diem.

But! There was also another book, about these two people, Miri and Val Con, also entitled Medias Res, for exactly the reason elucidated above -- and it was abandoned.

It is possible, but not certain, that the files on this so-ancient disk, are the abandoned book.

It is equally possible that the files belong to the book which later became Carpe Diem.

It is also possible, in fact, likely, that the media has degraded past the point of usefulness. These files -- for either book -- would have been created in...1987/1988.

Thank you, O, Internets, for the gift of your expertise.

Comments

[reedrover]

The converters to read WordStar are definitely available. If you have a 3.5 drive that will read the disk, and you aren't afraid to use it, then you can get a converter and go to town. http://www.wordstar.org/index.php/wordstar-file-conversion/wordstar-for-dos

Alternatively, I have a Windows XP machine with a 3.5 disk reader on it...

DOS!

[trolleypup.livejournal.com]

I have a 3.5 inch drive USB that I would be happy to send to you.

and...this seems to be useful...

http://www.howtofixcomputers.com/bb/ftopic63461.html

[dormantdrake.livejournal.com]

It is also possible to purchase an external floppy disk drive, in the event that you do not already have access to such a thing.

http://www.amazon.com/1-44MB-USB-External-Floppy-Drive/dp/B000M3GODW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320096580&sr=8-1

[romsfuulynn.livejournal.com]

The disks may well still be readable.

$11 looks about right for the USB floppy drive and the Wordstar converters are readily available.

If the disks are not immediately readable, then you may be talking $$$.

3.5 drive

[kalilama.livejournal.com]

I have an external 3.5 drive too, and am willing to send it.

Kali

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

As a grizzled old I/T vet I suggest getting an inexpensive USB 1.44M floppy drive off of E-Bay or Amazon. Regardless of the O/S involved as long as the files can be pulled off the drive you can either directly import them into a word processor OR get the converters to do so. (MS Word I'm looking at you...)

All that aside it's possible that the drive will have trouble reading the floppy disk in question but most of the time that's not an issue even when the disks are old.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

You've gotten some good advice already. I'll add one thing to it. If the first drive you try the disk in doesn't read it, don't give up before trying another. Floppy drives tend to get out of alignment with age. When they're out of alignment, they work perfectly well with disks they've formatted but not disks from other drives. If the drive you used to create that disk wasn't perfect, it may take a few tries to find a drive that will read it.

[reedrover]

Smart you for mentioning this!

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

We have a couple of machines with 3.5" drives over here in the Big City, Win98 and WinXP. Both have CD-R/RW capability, and one will write to USB flash drives. Don't think I have any software that will read WordStar files.

[sraun]

IIRC, WordStar for DOS was an ASCII mark-up format. If you're willing to deal with the clean-up, you can probably tell MSWord to open them as "recover text", and have unformatted (no bold, italic, etc.) text.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Or even in Wordpad (not Notepad, that doesn't handle ends of lines decently and some versions of Wordstar used plain newline instead of DOS CRLF). But there are Wordstar to whatever converters around, it's not difficult to convert to just recover the text and simple formatting (bold/italic/underline and paragraph separation), I've probably still got a couple I wrote years ago lying around as source (probably need to be updated before they'll compile but that's pretty trivial).

[stitchwhich.livejournal.com]

Call your local IT school and see if the instructor wants to use it as an extra-credit challenge for a student?

[craig trader (from livejournal.com)]

You can find out almost anything you'd want to about WordStar here:

http://www.wordstar.org/

In particular, programs that will convert WordStar for DOS files are listed here:

http://www.wordstar.org/index.php/wordstar-file-conversion/wordstar-for-dos

Recovering Files

[claire774.livejournal.com]

You have the smartest commenters anywhere.

I hope you can retrieve those files.
C.

And if you need more help...

[samrobinson.livejournal.com]

I've maintained a machine for just the purpose you're facing. It's been a while since I fired it up, but I have, within the last couple of years recovered stuff like what you're looking at. If it turns out to be difficult to navigate all of the twists and turns on this, I'd be glad to help.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I have a DOS computer with Protext on it, and Protext will import Wordstar and export ASCII. You may lose accented characters. I also have a USB floppy drive. Send me the disk and I will send you ascii text of your chapters.