Help with Data Recovery...!

Hi Computer-enabled Folks...

I have a few hundred old 3.5-inch floppy disks from which I am trying to recover some important text and photos.

I have a plug-and-play 3.5" floppy disk drive that plugs into my USB.

I am using Win7 and Office 2010. The disks were recorded on an older (long gone) desktop PC using WinXP and Office 2000 (I think). The format was simple .txt and.doc., plus mostly .jpg for photos.

The laptop works perfectly well, no problems. Reads and displays data recorded in the same formats as the floppies, but transferred to CD from that era...

BUT -- each disk I try to read comes back "You must format this disk before using", or "No files"...

I tried several data recovery programs on them but get no readings.

I know there is at leas SOME information on these disks, I put it there myself not more than 15 years ago. Since then, they have been stored in a cool dry place.

I understand that they don't lose data that quickly, and they have been near no magnetic items or coiled electric cords, etc.

They are not oxidized. They simply do not read.

I must be missing some simple trick, or some program that reads or restores data on these floppies.

I did format one that had a few useless texts, and was able to read it as an empty disk. I tried a data recovery program on it but got no data back I was able to record on the disk after, and read the new data.

Am I doing something wrong, or is the data just a good-bye...?