My Civ I floppy won't work on XP

[MetHimPikeHoses]

Okay, so I found my old 1991 3.5" floppies for Civ I. Unfortunately, my computer doesn't recognize the disks, and asks if I want them formatted. No! Does anyone know how to work around this problem?

 

[Alex Johnson]

WinXP can read the old disks. The most likely cause is that your disks have suffered what people call "Bit Rot". Floppy disks have a useful life of 10 years. Those disks are now about 15 years old and the odds of them working are rapidly going down.

I know you don't want to think about it, but those disks are probably useless on every computer now because the magnetic fields on the disk are too decayed.

My solution was to install the game back in 1991 and every time I move to a new computer I copy the directory on my hard drive. I haven't used the original disks since 1995. I also back it up on CD or DVD every few years (along with all of my old DOS programs).

 

[MetHimPikeHoses]

I know you don't want to think about it, but those disks are probably useless on every computer now because the magnetic fields on the disk are too decayed.


Ugh. I didn't want to hear that! Dang it.