Floppy read problem Word2000

[LYoung]

I've been reading about how I should never save/read directly to a floppy
disk from Word. Here's my dilemma:

I run a computer lab at a middle school. Kids routinely open from and save
to their floppies. This was never a problem until we installed 30 new Dell
workstations running Windows XP/Office 2000. Now we often get floppy read
errors, mostly from floppies brought from home with saved doc/ppt/or other
files.

A kid will try to open a file from a floppy and gets a "A:\ is not
accessible" error. I can take the floppy to my admin workstation (also
running XP), or to a Win98 computer and am able to read the floppy ...
sometimes. Sometimes I have to run a scan on the floppy to get it to work,
and it does ... sometimes. Many times I have to format the disk.

Our lab computers run Fortres 101 security software. I've thought maybe
this could be a problem, too, since my admin machine and the Win98 machine do
not run Fortres and often can read the suspect floppy.

Is there a way around this problem? I am not going to instruct 12-15
year-olds how to use Windows Explorer!

Thanks for any help.

Lynda Young

 

[Bob I]

If you don't how in the world are they expected to learn? That's the
most basic part of computer usage. They don't use the computer installed
Applications UNTIL they know BASIC computer usage.

 

[RWN]

As you've no doubt read, you should never open/write directly to any removable
media-esp. floppies.
You could write a batch program or VBA routine in Word to do the copy but it (in my
opinion) would be far easier to instruct your students to use explorer to copy the files.
Also, in my experience, most 12-15 yr olds know a whole lot more than this 50+ year
old.

Regards;
RWN

 

[VManes]

WinXP and floppies do not get along - period. The best thing you can do is
rip the floppy drives out of the PCs, use USB thumbdrives or CD-RWs.

You can read a long discussion on the problem, with a possible solution (if
the download file is still available) at:
http://tinyurl.com/4xahz

..
***************************

I've been reading about how I should never save/read directly to a floppy
disk from Word. Here's my dilemma:

I run a computer lab at a middle school. Kids routinely open from and save
to their floppies. This was never a problem until we installed 30 new Dell
workstations running Windows XP/Office 2000. Now we often get floppy read
errors, mostly from floppies brought from home with saved doc/ppt/or other
files.

A kid will try to open a file from a floppy and gets a "A:\ is not
accessible" error. I can take the floppy to my admin workstation (also
running XP), or to a Win98 computer and am able to read the floppy ...
sometimes. Sometimes I have to run a scan on the floppy to get it to work,
and it does ... sometimes. Many times I have to format the disk.

Our lab computers run Fortres 101 security software. I've thought maybe
this could be a problem, too, since my admin machine and the Win98 machine
do
not run Fortres and often can read the suspect floppy.

Is there a way around this problem? I am not going to instruct 12-15
year-olds how to use Windows Explorer!

Thanks for any help.

Lynda Young