Why would a disk that was formatted suddenly not work?

[200caballos]

I have been using a floppy disk for 4 weeks to type and save notes for grad
classes on my laptop. Yesterday when I attempted to open the file I needed
in Word, I received this message: "The disk in drive A: is not formatted
properly. Please check the disk, and reformat if necessary." The laptop
reads the disk and I can see all my files. I do not want to have to
re-format the disc because if I do I will loose all the information on the
disk, and needless to say I need my notes. I believe the disk may have been
compromised because in order to print (which is why I am saving to a floppy
in the first place) I have to put the disk in one of the computers in the
university's computer lab. Is there any way to eliminate the problem I am
having without reformatting the disk and loosing all the info on it? And is
there any way to prevent the same thing happening to my other disks? I have
1 week of class left and need to be sure they will work in order to type my
finals.

Thank you for any help you can give me.

 

[Jezebel]

Never ever EVER read or write Word files directly to or from a floppy disk.
Sooner or later (after 4 weeks in your case) it scrambles the files and the
disk. Always work with the file on your hard disk: used Windows Explorer or
MyComputer to copy the files between hard disk and floppy.

Try copying the files to see if you can recover them in this case, but
you're likely out of luck. The scrambling is usually unrecoverable.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The message is bogus, but the problem is real. When you open any Word file,
Word has to create temp files in the same folder. As you work on the file,
more temp files are created. If for any reason these files are not deleted
when you close the document (they should be), your floppy can fill up very
quickly, leaving no room for the minimum temp file Word has to create. Try
copying your file to the HD and then opening it from there; if you're lucky,
you'll dodge the bullet this time. In future, do not ever save a file
directly to a floppy or open it directly from one; that is one of the top
three causes of document corruption.