<p>So my lab group in physics saved a word document on to a floppy disk. I'm in charge of revising the document, but i cannot open the word document on my computer. My computer tells me to format the disk, but gives me a warning that if i format the disk it might lose everything in the disk. So what do i do? I do not have a back up file because this is the only file my group has. And the floppy disk says that it is for DOS/V DOS18 formatted. The file was saved on a newer computer compared to my computer. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>Is there any way you can open and revise the document on the original computer or one similar to that computer (was it in a computer lab)? Because that might be your best bet at retrieving the document.</p>
<p>If you format the disk, then you are going to lose all the data on the disk. Is someone else able to open the file on their computer? Try that as well as other computers in your school's PC lab.</p>
<p>Oh, and for the next time: Floppies are literally antiques now. USB keys are the way to go; they're much more reliable, I'll add.</p>
<p>You should still have a back up copy if you use a USB key though. Although they are much more reliable than floppy disks, very, very occasionally they will corrupt a file (I know because one time I attempted to open a 12 page assignment and all I got was gibberish)</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply. Just talked to one of my lab partners. he tells me to not format it. I guess i'm going to have to open the document at the computer labs at school because that's where we typed the document. I know floppies are an antique now and they are really slow too. No one brought a usb that day so we were stuck with a floppy.</p>
<p>You could also email files to yourself, and then you'd easily be able to retrieve them anywhere that you can access your email account.</p>
<p>Yea we try doing that but the computer we checked out to do our report had no internet connection. go figure.</p>