Hi,
Ray Campbell writes:

I got a call from someone who has a .rtf file on a floppy disk that will
not open, no matter what she tries to open it with.  She has tried
copying it to her hard drive, and she gets an error saying it cannot be
copied.  She scanned the file for viruses and it came up clean.  She
tried sending the file to me, but her mail program wouldn't attach it.

I'm thinking she's got a bad sector or something on the floppy.  Is
there anything in Windows XP that we can use to try repairing or
recovering the file?  Since it's on a floppy, doing a system restore to
an earlier date probably won't work.

Sure, try the following steps.
Go to the command prompt, or type cmd in the run dialog and press enter.
Then type "cd c:\windows\system32" and press enter.
Type "chkdsk a: /r" and press enter.

The above command will invoke the chkdsk program with the /r switch to cause 
a repair of any bad sectors, restore lost clusters, et cetera.
Set screen echo to all so that you can hear what happens.
Chkdsk will do its thing, and when it's through, you'll be returned to the 
command prompt.
This will probably take a few minutes.
Type exit to return to Windows.

Alternatively, you could highlight drive A in My Computer and go to 
Properties.  In the Tools tab is a button labeled Check Now.  This will 
check the disk for errors, but it probably won't fix them. So chkdsk is your 
best bet.

Hope this helps.

Tom




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