Floppy Discs-What to Look For

One thing I have noticed while working at the Computer Café, is that people will come in with important documents on floppy discs that are over a year old, and they have no back-up copies of these files.  Always, I repeat, always make 2-3 back-up copies of important files, and keep them in different locations, such as: one on your hard drive, one or more on floppy discs.  Remember, floppy discs are cheap, don’t be cheap with your time and work and leave your information on one floppy disc.  Floppy discs do go bad.  They can go bad 1 year, 5 years, or even one day after you put your information on them.  Be sure to back-up your files!

Another thing is, if you are wanting to work on a file from your floppy disc, such as add information, or take off information to a document, then you need to first "COPY " the said document off of the floppy and copy it to the hard drive.  If this is not done, if you are working straight from your floppy, not only will it run very slow, but you also run the chance of corrupting your floppy and losing all files you have on it.  Again, copy your file from your floppy to your hard drive so you will have a back-up.  Note: Again, floppy’s are cheap, get extras and back-up your information on more than one!