11 Jan
2007
11 Jan
'07
4:57 a.m.
From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at
yahoo.co.uk>
Al Kossow wrote:
> > what's the expected
> > remaining lifetime of a floppy? Time is probably of the essence
>
>Chuck and Fred have more experience, but I'm assuming once they're
>in a stable temp/humidity environment they should be ok for another
>10 years. The stuff I'm dealing with now is stuff WAY past its shelf
>live (20-30 year old tapes). I've read hundreds of floppies over the
>past five years or so, and the only problems I've had have been with
>70's 8" media that was stored in poor conditions where the oxide
>strips off upon head contact,
---snip---
Hi
I've found two issues with floppies. One was that the glue used
to hold the liner on, inside the envelope, bleed through the liner
and glopped on the heads.
The other was a head that wasn't perfectly smooth. I don't
know if this was from wear or someone using one of those
drive damaging head cleaner disk.
I usually clean the head(s) each time before I use a machine
that hasn't been run for a while. I find that stuff that would
normally wipe off would tend to stick to the surface if left
there for some time.
All disk loose some material but it is when the stuff sticks to
the heads that it does the most damage.
I have disk that are older then 20 years that show no indication
of immediate failure. Maybe I'm just lucky.
Dwight
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