29 Nov
1999
29 Nov
'99
3:40 p.m.
On Mon, 29 Nov 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote:
I've got hundreds of diskettes over 20 years old,
and NONE have been losing
emulsion. I've had some of the jackets crack, and I've had some of the ones
which have gotten wet along the way stick in their jackets so they wouldn't
rotate, but the emulsion on those which would rotate, I've never had flaking
of the emulsion. Maybe that's because it's really dry here in Denver.
Maybe, but I doubt it. The only diskettes that I have ever had any real
problem with were a batch of 8" Verbatim's that had a 'lubricating'
coating to reduce head wear. I quickly - but not quickly enough -
learned to make a full copy of the diskette before attempting to off
load individual files. Unfortunately, before the lesson sunk in I had
destroyed a few directory tracks!
If you clean your disk heads from time to time,
you'll probably not build up
enough glutch to damage a diskette.
And that can be really often! But the full copy is the way to go.
- don
Dick