External Floppy Disc Drive

[nomisbehvn]

I just purchased a USB Portable Diskette Drive.  It did not come with instructions.  I plugged it into my computer and inserted a floppy.  I want to convert all of my floppys to CD.  I tried to pull up two discs, and I got a warning box that says "not formatted".  If I reformat the floppy disc I'll lose all the data.  What should I do?  I use Windows XP Professional.  Thanks!

[Salmon Trout]

USB floppy drives don't need instructions. Plug it in and use it like a normal floppy drive. The disks may be unreadable. Have you tried them in another computer?

[Computer Hope Admin]

Floppy diskettes are notoriously unreliable, and if haven't been used for some time are likely bad. If you reformat the floppy diskette you will loose all data. Try reading the diskettes in another computer as suggested above. If the diskettes give the same error on another computer it's likely bad diskettes.