Solved 3.5 Drive Does Not Recognize (FAT) Formatted Disk Text File

“As far as old 3.5″ drive misalignment, it is still reading all my old 3.5″ disks.”
The read head is the same as the write head so that is why it can still read the disks it’s writing, even though the track is slightly offset.

1. yes, mailing the files would be an easy way.

2. The problem is not how old the floppies are, the problem is the heads from your old drive are out of alignment and not matching up with the heads in the new drive. This won’t work. You are still writing to the floppies using your old drive, it doesn’t matter if the floppies are new or old.

3. Yes, you can transfer data over a serial cable.

4. It’s not the problem with the computer, it’s the fact that the heads are misaligned. Installing a new drive in an old computer isn’t going to work. If your new USB drive can’t read the floppy, then another new drive isn’t going to able to read them either.

If I may also offer a bit of advice, floppy disks are very unreliable as you are experiencing, and they are a dying format. You should not continue writing your valuable data to new ones. Once you retrieve the data, I would highly suggest storing in on your hard drive as well as making a backup copy on CD or DVD.