21 Mar
2014
21 Mar
'14
4:57 a.m.
On Thu, 20 Mar 2014, drlegendre . wrote:
FWIW, I recently came into possession of 50+
5-1/4" floppies, mostly in
Atari format, some in Commodore. Almost all had odd spots of haze on the
media, and smelled characteristically of mildew.
None were readable / bootable. Pretty sad, I had to trash a load of vintage
docs & books as well, some schlub had left them to sit in the damp for who
knows how long...
Does that +ever+ turn out well? For anything that can corrode or otherwise
suffer mildew?
Depends on your definition of "well". In terms of recordable media I have
about 90% success rate for data recovery using the following procedure:
- Slit open the diskette jacket on the edge opposite the cutouts and
remove the media. If there's no hub ring, make a tiny spot with indelible
marker right against the center hole to denote "top".
- Wash gently by hand using mild, non-scented soap and warm water, then
rinse in warm water.
- Inspect it under bright lighting and repeat if you missed any spots.
- Blot dry with paper towels - if you are in a hurry just wave it around a
bit to evaporate any drops of water that are left.
- Sacrifice a clean, new diskette by removing the media and replacing with
the one you're trying to recover.
- Give it a try on a drive with clean heads.
I've been able to return a fair number of things from the bit-bucket in
this manner. Obviously it won't help you in cases where the binder is
breaking down...
Archivists recover water and mold damaged print media all the time, but
it's not something I've ever pursued.
Steve
--