28 Sep
2006
28 Sep
'06
4:24 p.m.
Subject: Re: FW: Third round of Diskette Experiments completed (results)
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 23:39:28 +0100 (BST)
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
[...]
I've had media both soaked and dried after soaking with various sticky
beverages. I've found they cleaned up fine and read with out dificulty.
I've mounted them with out the jacket and using an old one with cleaned
and dried media.
Generally floppies do not like any abrasive damage, holes, some solvents
and of course magnetic fields. Other than that it's amazing what
will survive.
Allison
The Diskette Experiments, Phase III
----------------------------------
The Test Disks
--------------
[...]
Drunk Disk
----------
[...]
Conclusion: The disk is unreadable due to a
physical (non-bit) failure of the disk jacket
and internal disk mylar heavily sticking to the
jacket itself.
My first reaction would the to open up one side of the jacket, slide out
the disk (and keep it the right way up!), clean the surface of said disk
and then either 'mount a naked floppy' or use a spare jacket.
It would be interesting to know if the data could be recovered if you did
that (in all 3 cases). 
29 Sep
29 Sep
8:54 a.m.
Allison wrote:
Generally floppies do not like any abrasive damage,
holes, some solvents
and of course magnetic fields. Other than that it's amazing what
will survive.
... unless it's a 3.5" floppy made in the last 6 or so years, then you just
need to *look* at them funny and they fail :)
Actually, typically I find the failure rate to be about 2/3 - I don't think I
can think of a single other product that reaches the consumer with such a high
rating.
cheers
Jules
--
A. Because it destroys the natural flow of conversation.
Q. What's wrong with top posting ?
9:47 a.m.
Allison wrote:
Holy crap, what brand are you buying ?
I've been using Fuji colour(ed) 3.5" HD discs for a few years now and I've
never had a single failure.
Recently, I put Office 4.3 Pro, Windows 3.11, Dos 6.22, a bunch of utilites
and apps (e.g. TCP/IP32, 3c509, Doom) onto 3.5" for a Compaq DeskPro 386/25
1987 vintage, not a single failure.
They came recommended by someone who uses discs daily.
I've had bad experiences with cheap discs...
Dave ;)
Generally floppies do not like any abrasive
damage, holes, some
solvents and of course magnetic fields. Other than that
it's amazing
what will survive.
... unless it's a 3.5" floppy made in the last 6 or so years,
then you just need to *look* at them funny and they fail :)
Actually, typically I find the failure rate to be about 2/3 -
I don't think I can think of a single other product that
reaches the consumer with such a high rating.
12:42 p.m.
New subject: FW: Third round of Diskette Experiments completed (results)
On 9/29/2006 at 5:47 PM David Hunt wrote:
Holy crap, what brand are you buying ?
I've got a box of unused DSED (2.88MB) Fujis. The first few were fine,
but after about 4-5 years, the remainder won't even format without errors.
I have to think that there's a problem with the binder used. (FWIW, the
drive used is a Teac FD-235J).
I picked up a bunch of new Imation DSHD 3.5" diskettes. Again, just fine
right out of the box, but after a year and 2-3 reuses, they're worthless.
There were some really terrible 5.25" DSDD (360K) disks marketed. One type
was sold by Control Data (StorageMaster). If I see one of those in a
conversion job, I warn the customer that there's a fair chance that the
data may not be readable. Not only do these things tend to stick to the
liner, but the coating will flake right off the cookie when you try to read
one. The ones with earlier manufacturing dates tend to be much better
than the later ones.
"Elephant" brand 360Ks can be problematical in the same way, as can the
"Precision" brand.
Cheers,
Chuck
6:23 p.m.
New subject: FW: Third round of Diskette Experiments completed (results)
On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote:
There were some really terrible 5.25" DSDD (360K)
disks marketed. One type
was sold by Control Data (StorageMaster). If I see one of those in a
. . .
"Elephant" brand 360Ks can be problematical in the same way, as can the
"Precision" brand.
Just about every brand produced some bad batches.
The Verbatims right before "Datalife" were pretty bad. Was the trademark
"Datalife" created just to try to reassure us that they were no longer
going to jopardize the life of our data?
The worst 360Ks that I encountered was Roytype (Royal Typewriter).
Within a few minutes after writing and verifying, they would be blank
again. Hmmmm. could also get something like that from the wrong
coercivity, ...
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