4 May
2005
4 May
'05
9:42 a.m.
Anyone know why modern floppy disks are such total junk? They seem to
often develop problems after only one or two writes - whereas back in
the day they were always pretty reliable.
I can't imagine the people who made these things threw out all the
decent equipment and replaced it with something made out of snot and
string. Presumably it's a quality control issue?
About 25% of Sony branded floppies seem to die on the first format,
which is nice...
Maybe it's a cunning ploy by the manufacturers to make otherwise-awful
blank CDs look better :-)
(I'm trying to remain cheerful here whilst attempting to find a floppy
that actually works 100%...)
4 May
4 May
10:06 a.m.
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Jules Richardson wrote:
Anyone know why modern floppy disks are such total
junk? They seem to
often develop problems after only one or two writes - whereas back in
the day they were always pretty reliable.
That's a really good question. I'd like an answer myself. I routinely
read disks that are 20-25-30 years old with few problems, yet I can't walk
10 feet to another computer and recover a file I just copied onto a modern
3.5" disk without the disk going bad. Go figure.
About 25% of Sony branded floppies seem to die on the
first format,
which is nice...
It seems to be all brands. 3Ms are particularly bad as well.
(I'm trying to remain cheerful here whilst
attempting to find a floppy
that actually works 100%...)
Once you do find one, hang on to it. They're becoming as precious as
gold.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
9:31 a.m.
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Jules Richardson wrote:
I've always put this down to the vast increase of track density on the
media. Of course, I could be full of fluff, but it would certainly explain
why I can read my 30 year old 8" floppies (Which I could almost use a
microscope to pick out the 0s and 1s) and why 1.44MB (or
greater?) 3.5" disks are such a disappointment.
I also apply this logic to why the latest 300GB Maxtor disk lasts six to
eight months before dying, as opposed to any number of <100MB disks that
cannot be killed. This, however, might be a false excuse - but I like to
use it anyway. (Of course, sometimes I prefer to just say Maxtor's suck
and dream of the day I can afford an all SCSI disk system)
Anyways. My potential delusion unleashed.
JP
Anyone know why modern floppy disks are such
total junk? They seem to
often develop problems after only one or two writes - whereas back in
the day they were always pretty reliable.
That's a really good question. I'd like an answer myself. I routinely
read disks that are 20-25-30 years old with few problems, yet I can't walk
10 feet to another computer and recover a file I just copied onto a modern
3.5" disk without the disk going bad. Go figure.
11:43 a.m.
On Wed, 2005-05-04 at 08:31 -0500, JP Hindin wrote:
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
Sorry, should have been clearer - I mean for the same type of media.
i.e. 3.5 HD floppies from ten years ago seem to be consistently *way*
better than brand-new branded 3.5" media. I can't believe there was a
change in the equipment because typically the same manufacturers who
used to make floppies still do, so presumably it's a quality issue.
I've just been going through some floppies bought within the last two
years (mainly Sony, but not likely to be from the same batch) - I've
pulled apart the failures and they all seem to have discolouration or
streaks / smears on the surfaces.
In other words, it's not a density issue (i.e. higher density media is
more prone to failure - although of course that holds true too) - more
of a quality / fabrication issue. What I don't understand is how the
"decent" manufaturers did a good job for so many years and then started
churning out junk; it's not like 50 years passed and the knowledge of
how to make a floppy disk got lost or anything!)
cheers
Jules
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Jules Richardson wrote:
I've always put this down to the vast increase of track density on the
media. Of course, I could be full of fluff, but it would certainly explain
why I can read my 30 year old 8" floppies (Which I could almost use a
microscope to pick out the 0s and 1s) and why 1.44MB (or
greater?) 3.5" disks are such a disappointment. Anyone know why modern floppy disks are such
total junk? They seem to
often develop problems after only one or two writes - whereas back in
the day they were always pretty reliable.
That's a really good question. I'd like an answer myself. I routinely
read disks that are 20-25-30 years old with few problems, yet I can't walk
10 feet to another computer and recover a file I just copied onto a modern
3.5" disk without the disk going bad. Go figure. 
3:43 p.m.
New subject: Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...
At 08:31 AM 5/4/05 -0500, you wrote:
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
It's not just high density. The newest maxtors DO suck! So do the latest
Seagates. For the ones of you that didn't know it, Glen Goodwin operates a
computer repair shop and has had LOTS of experience with this. I talked to
him about this and he recommended buying an IBM drive made by Fujitsu. I
bought one and have had NO trouble with it (knock on wood!). All of the
Seagates and Maxtors that I've tried in the last few years have failed
within six months.
Joe
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Jules Richardson wrote:
I've always put this down to the vast increase of track density on the
media. Of course, I could be full of fluff, but it would certainly explain
why I can read my 30 year old 8" floppies (Which I could almost use a
microscope to pick out the 0s and 1s) and why 1.44MB (or
greater?) 3.5" disks are such a disappointment.
I also apply this logic to why the latest 300GB Maxtor disk lasts six to
eight months before dying, as opposed to any number of <100MB disks that
cannot be killed. This, however, might be a false excuse - but I like to
use it anyway. (Of course, sometimes I prefer to just say Maxtor's suck
and dream of the day I can afford an all SCSI disk system) Anyone know why modern floppy disks are such
total junk? They seem to
often develop problems after only one or two writes - whereas back in
the day they were always pretty reliable.
That's a really good question. I'd like an answer myself. I routinely
read disks that are 20-25-30 years old with few problems, yet I can't walk
10 feet to another computer and recover a file I just copied onto a modern
3.5" disk without the disk going bad. Go figure. 
5:21 p.m.
New subject: Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...
On 5/4/05, Joe R. <rigdonj at cfl.rr.com> wrote:
At 08:31 AM 5/4/05 -0500, you wrote:
I thought Hitachi had all the IBM drive ops these days?
-dhbarr.
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
It's not just high density. The newest maxtors DO suck! So do the latest
Seagates. For the ones of you that didn't know it, Glen Goodwin operates a
computer repair shop and has had LOTS of experience with this. I talked to
him about this and he recommended buying an IBM drive made by Fujitsu. I
bought one and have had NO trouble with it (knock on wood!). All of the
Seagates and Maxtors that I've tried in the last few years have failed
within six months. On Wed, 4 May 2005, Jules Richardson wrote:
I also apply this logic to why the
latest 300GB Maxtor disk lasts six to
eight months before dying, as opposed to any number of <100MB disks that
cannot be killed. This, however, might be a false excuse - but I like to
use it anyway. (Of course, sometimes I prefer to just say Maxtor's suck
and dream of the day I can afford an all SCSI disk system) Anyone know why modern floppy disks are such
total junk? They seem to
often develop problems after only one or two writes - whereas back in
the day they were always pretty reliable.
6:54 p.m.
New subject: Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...
You may be right but I THOUGHT it was Fujitsu. Whatever it was, it's
working fine. It's already outlasted several Maxtors and Seagates. I just
checked the device manager and it says that it's an IBM drive so it doesn't
identify the actual manufacturer.
Joe
At 04:21 PM 5/4/05 -0500, you wrote:
I thought Hitachi had all the IBM drive ops these days?
-dhbarr.
7:21 p.m.
New subject: Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...
Joe wrote:
I just checked the device manager and it says that
it's an IBM drive so
it doesn't identify the actual manufacturer.
Sure it does. The actual manufacturer was IBM. They made their own
drives until they spun off that division as a partnership with Hitachi.
8 May
8 May
2:38 p.m.
New subject: Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...
Eric Smith wrote:
Joe wrote:
Well, uh, no, Joe got the drive through me just a couple of months ago
and right on the label it has both the IBM (prominently, displayed as
the "brand" name) and Hitachi ("manufactured by") names.
Glen
0/0
I just checked the device manager and it says that
it's an IBM drive so
it doesn't identify the actual manufacturer.
Sure it does. The actual manufacturer was IBM. They made their own
drives until they spun off that division as a partnership with Hitachi. 
5 May
5 May
3:02 a.m.
New subject: Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...
Joe R. wrote:
You may be right but I THOUGHT it was Fujitsu.
Whatever it was, it's
working fine. It's already outlasted several Maxtors and Seagates. I just
checked the device manager and it says that it's an IBM drive so it doesn't
identify the actual manufacturer.
IBM drives are most definitely Hitachi. And that being said, IBM/Hitachi
drives are the only drives I've never had fail on me. I run them in mirrors:
2 75GXP 30GB, 2 120GB, 2 180GB... not a single failure and the 75GXPs are going
on 5 years now. And they're fast!!
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
10:16 a.m.
New subject: Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...
Rumor has it that Jim Leonard may have mentioned these words:
Joe R. wrote:
Yup... run 'em for years.
You may be right but I THOUGHT it was Fujitsu.
Whatever it was, it's
working fine. It's already outlasted several Maxtors and Seagates. I just
checked the device manager and it says that it's an IBM drive so it doesn't
identify the actual manufacturer.
IBM drives are most definitely Hitachi. And that being said, IBM/Hitachi drives are the only
drives I've never
had fail on me.
Like so many others... depends on which drives... ;-)
I've had great luck with the TravelStars and UltraStars... but the
Death^WDeskStars I tend to avoid; Altho they're not as bad as some drives
I've used, I've not had quite as good luck with them as Western Digital.
I run them in mirrors: 2 75GXP 30GB, 2 120GB, 2
180GB... not a single
failure and the 75GXPs are going on 5 years now. And they're fast!!
I was amazed -- I have a 40G TravelStar in an external Firewire case, I'd
intended it for just backup / "quasi-online" storage (stuff I wouldn't need
fast or often) but it was less than 10% slower than the internal WD 30G
drive I had - more than fast enough to use for "normal use" so I do! It was
a very nice surprise... ;-)
If I had the cash, I'd replace the 4200rpm Toshiba drive in my laptop with
one of those slickety-neato 7200rpm Hitachi drives... but alas, I don't.
[[ I do, however, think I can talk the wifey in into an IDE interface for
my CoCo finally... I happen to have a NOS IDE 2.2G Castlewood removable
drive that I think would be *schweetness* with that... ;-) ]]
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger | A new truth in advertising slogan
SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | for MicroSoft: "We're not the oxy...
zmerch at 30below.com | ...in oxymoron!"
10:34 a.m.
New subject: Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...
I've had great luck with the TravelStars and
UltraStars... but the
Death^WDeskStars I tend to avoid; Altho they're not as bad as some drives
I've used, I've not had quite as good luck with them as Western Digital.
Old Western Digital drives, I had quite a lot of trouble with. They seem
to have fixed their quality problems, though, and I use them exclusively now.
I have an IBM drive in my desktop dual G4, though, and that seems to work
pretty well. Also, the big Fujitsu half height SCSI disk in my Apple server
has performed very well under constant pounding for quite awhile.
I won't touch Maxtors.
--
---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Stand by to launch beef by-product into oscillating ventilation unit ... ---
7:05 p.m.
New subject: Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...
On 5/5/05, Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote:
And that being said, IBM/Hitachi
drives are the only drives I've never had fail on me.
I've had some bad experiences with drives from many manufacturers,
including IBM/Hitachi. The problem in the IBM/Hitachi case was that
upgrading to Windows 2000 on a ThinkPad would often overwrite
"protected" cylinders containing drive configuration info. It was a
case of "upgrade windows"=="lose your drive". Since these cylinders
never did exist according to the controller, it wasn't fixable by mere
mortals even with a swap of the drive controller boards.
I've also had drives go simultaneously in RAID 1 configurations, which
also leads me to believe that it was a bad command to the drive that
did it. In that case it was fixable by a controller swap from drive
that died from a mechanical failure.
The whole business of putting drive configuration info in modifiable
memory has bitten me more than once. I would guess that more than
half of the recent vintage dead drives I have seen with "controller
failures" have been physically and electronically fine, but with
overwritten flash or on-disk configuration info.
8 May
8 May
2:26 p.m.
New subject: Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...
Finally getting nearly up-to-date on the classiccmp mail . . .
Joe R. wrote:
You may be right but I THOUGHT it was Fujitsu.
Whatever it was, it's
working fine. It's already outlasted several Maxtors and Seagates. I just
checked the device manager and it says that it's an IBM drive so it doesn't
identify the actual manufacturer.
Sorry, Joe, but you're mistaken. The drive you got is an IBM-branded
Hitachi (as are all of the drives we used in our final 200 or so
systems -- we'll be shutting down the computer facility sometime
in the next couple of months).
I'd have to pull some records but I'd say we used at least 500 of
the IBM/Hitachi drives -- and I KNOW that we had a zero failure
rate on them.
Glen
0/0
4 May
4 May
5:44 p.m.
New subject: Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...
On Wednesday 04 May 2005 12:43, Joe R. wrote:
--snip--
It's not just high density. The newest maxtors
DO suck! So do the latest
Seagates. For the ones of you that didn't know it, Glen Goodwin operates a
computer repair shop and has had LOTS of experience with this. I talked to
him about this and he recommended buying an IBM drive made by Fujitsu. I
bought one and have had NO trouble with it (knock on wood!). All of the
Seagates and Maxtors that I've tried in the last few years have failed
within six months.
One of my large manufacturing clients here in Silicon Valley uses 100,000s of
drives from various manufacturers. I've looked at their "return" numbers -
and not surprisingly, ALL manufacturers have bad lots - even on server class
drives.
One trend I have noticed - whenever there is a significant "upgrade" - 7200RPM
to 10K RPM or 10K RPM to 15K RPM - or in density - the return rate shoots up.
Since most folks don't have access to this specific kind of data (it's highly
confidential) - there are a few rules that I follow that have generally kept
me out of trouble with drives:
1) Don't buy the "latest, supposedly greatest" drives.
2) When buying drive lots - go for the "former" best seller. For example when
72GB drives became the new "standard" in IBM/HP/Sun server systems - there
was tons of 36GB drives that showed up almost immediately on the surplus
market. Buy them and you'll likely be safe.
3) Buy server class drives as opposed to consumer class drives (They have
better bearings, castings, etc.) You can't tell from how a drive looks on
the outside - look at the specs and the MTBF numbers before you buy.
4) Most SCA and FC drives are very reliable because they are almost always
server class drives.
Cheers,
Lyle
--
Lyle Bickley
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
http://bickleywest.com
"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"
6:12 p.m.
New subject: Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...
In message <3.0.6.32.20050504154353.014b6b70 at pop-server.cfl.rr.com>
"Joe R." <rigdonj at cfl.rr.com> wrote:
I talked to
him about this and he recommended buying an IBM drive made by Fujitsu.
1) IBM don't make hard drives anymore. Hitachi bought IBM's storage division
after the 75GXP fiasco.
2) Fujitsu give the impression of not caring about customer satisfaction.
I've dealt with them in the past (not their HDD division though). They
really don't seem to care once they've got your money. Case in point: they
made a batch of drives that had a near-99% failure rate over 12 months,
due to Cirrus Logic changing the plastic they used for the chip packaging.
Turned out the new stuff plated out silver over time - heat and electrical
current accelerated it. Eventually the silver would build up on the bond
wires and... Poof. Dead chip.
Fujitsu's response? They voided the warranties on the affected drives. If
you don't believe me, search for "Fujitsu" on www.theregister.co.uk.
IIRC
a lot of other IT news sources picked up on the story, and the resulting
class-action suit.
I swear by Maxtors, but I always buy drives from the middle of the model
range. I got a 40GB 5T040H4 that failed in two years, but Maxtor RMA'd it
without a fuss.. with a 6L080J4 - the next model series up, faster seek time,
twice the capacity and IIRC they left it with the 3-year standard warranty,
starting from the manufacture date on the replacement drive.
It's probably worth mentioning that the '040 never failed completely. It just
started having trouble spinning up on cold mornings. Holding the Reset button
down for a few seconds got it spinning. Shame Ghost clobbered the superblock
when I tried to copy from the '040 to the new '080. Lost a lot of data to
that, then found a lovely technote on Symantec's website that mentioned the
bug...
Later.
--
Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB,
philpem at philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice,
http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI
... Mary had a little lamb. The doctor was surprised.
5 May
5 May
8:15 p.m.
New subject: Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...
On May 4, 2005, at 6:12 PM, Philip Pemberton wrote:
I swear by Maxtors, but I always buy drives from the
middle of the
model
range.
About 3 years ago we bought about 40 Maxtor 20GB drives... about 100%
failure rate within 2 years, 60% within a year. I've not touched one
since.
6 May
6 May
3:02 a.m.
New subject: Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...
In message <e69381633d92ae21a92838dfdad6f977 at rbii.com>
Gavin Thomas Nicol <gtn at rbii.com> wrote:
On May 4, 2005, at 6:12 PM, Philip Pemberton wrote:
Eek. That's nasty... Might see if WD have recovered from their quality
"issues" (the Caviar series were pretty dire IIRC). Or Seagate for that
matter - I had pretty bad luck with the 1GB->4GB Medalists, but the 6GB
Medalist and 4GB U4 aren't too bad. The 5-year warranty is a plus, too
(though if you have to jump through burning hoops to get an RMA number...)
Probably helps that the D740X series were effectively Quantum drives - mine
looks like a Quantum, right down to the type and positioning of the label
(it's silkscreened onto the drive casing in black ink - Maxtor use a white
paper label). The only thing that seems to differ from a Quantum is the fact
that it's got Maxtor's logo on it. 'Tis a very nice drive. I've got a
20GB
D740X in the cupboard too, waiting for a use (ran Powermax on it, passed the
selftests - notbad for a hamfest find) :)
Later.
--
Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB,
philpem at philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice,
http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI
... Hailing frequencies open Mr. Worf. - Hi, this is Steve Wright on 1 FM.
I swear by Maxtors, but I always buy drives from
the middle of the
model
range.
About 3 years ago we bought about 40 Maxtor 20GB drives... about 100%
failure rate within 2 years, 60% within a year. I've not touched one
since.
4 May
4 May
6:59 p.m.
New subject: Now hard drives too. Re: Modern floppy disk question...
Joe wrote:
Glen Goodwin operates a
computer repair shop and has had LOTS of experience with this. I talked to
him about this and he recommended buying an IBM drive made by Fujitsu.
Ain't no such thing. What used to be IBM's disk drive business is now
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (www.hgst.com), and they certainly
do not sell drives made by Fujitsu, since they make their own.
Like every brand, IBM drives had their own share of problems at times.
As one of my friends observes, you should avoid drive manufacturers with
an "m" in the in the name, and contrary to appearances "Seagate" does
contain an "m". :-)
The reality is that good or bad experiences with one generation of drives
from one manufacturer don't tell you much about
what to expect from the
earlier or later generations from the same manufacturer.
Most of the
current disk drive manufacturers make reasonably good products most of
the time, but there are occasional exceptions.
The only way to really trust IDE drives is to run them with mirroring
or RAID 5. Otherwise, you'd best to frequent backups. Which is a
good idea even with mirroring or RAID.
Also note that IDE drives really do NOT have the same quality level
as SCSI/FC/SAS etc. This is not due to the interface, but due to
actual mechanical differences in how the drives are engineered and
manufactured. There is nothing inherent in the host interface that
dictates this; rather it is due to the market that the drives target.
SCSI etc. are targetted at high-reliability applications where cost is
not the overriding concern, while IDE drives are targetted at the
cost-is-everything consumer market. (There exist some "upscale" IDE
drives, which are better than the cheapest ones, but they're still not
in the same league as SCSI etc.)
For an interesting paper that explains some of the technical details
on how the "enterprise" drives differ from "consumer" drives, see the
paper "More than an interface - SCSI vs. ATA" by Seagate Research:
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~riedel/papers/SCSIvsATA.abstract.html
Eric
5:48 p.m.
In message <Pine.LNX.4.20.0505040827140.375-100000 at rosetta.binhost.com>
JP Hindin <jplist at kiwigeek.com> wrote:
I also apply this logic to why the latest 300GB Maxtor
disk lasts six to
eight months before dying, as opposed to any number of <100MB disks that
Never had a problem with Maxtors, aside from a 6-year-old 90845D4 (8.45GB)
DiamondMax that failed earlier this year.
Anyone know if Seagate's offerings are any good? Their Momentus laptop drives
are interesting, and I've got a 4.5GB U4 and a 6GB Medalist here that work
fine - 1997 and 1998 manufacture dates. I seem to recall a hideously bad
batch of 2GB drives a few years back, 1995/1996 fab dates IIRC.
I've also got an 850MB Maxtor (7850AV), a 420MB Conner (CP420?), a 120MB
Fujitsu and an 80MB IBM here that just won't die...
Later.
--
Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB,
philpem at philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice,
http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI
... BS (bee ess): n. An uninformed statement.
6:44 p.m.
From: "Philip Pemberton" <philpem at dsl.pipex.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 4:48 PM
In message <Pine.LNX.4.20.0505040827140.375-100000
at rosetta.binhost.com>
JP Hindin <jplist at kiwigeek.com> wrote:
I tend to buy Maxtors, I've had failures with them (5-10% failure within
waranty). I've never had any problems replacing the drive in waranty.
The Seagates & WD's I've bough have usually outlasted the waranty but the
waranties were always shorter than Maxtors.
In general I am happy with Maxtors so I stick with them, I don't go through
that many.
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
I also apply this logic to why the latest 300GB
Maxtor disk lasts six to
eight months before dying, as opposed to any number of <100MB disks that
Never had a problem with Maxtors, aside from a 6-year-old 90845D4 (8.45GB)
DiamondMax that failed earlier this year.
Anyone know if Seagate's offerings are any good? Their Momentus laptop
drives
are interesting, and I've got a 4.5GB U4 and a 6GB Medalist here that work
fine - 1997 and 1998 manufacture dates. I seem to recall a hideously bad
batch of 2GB drives a few years back, 1995/1996 fab dates IIRC.
I've also got an 850MB Maxtor (7850AV), a 420MB Conner (CP420?), a 120MB
Fujitsu and an 80MB IBM here that just won't die...
Later.
--
Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB,
6GB,
philpem at philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet,
2-slice,
http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI
... BS (bee ess): n. An uninformed statement.
7:01 p.m.
At 10:48 PM 5/4/05 +0100, you wrote:
In message <Pine.LNX.4.20.0505040827140.375-100000
at rosetta.binhost.com>
JP Hindin <jplist at kiwigeek.com> wrote:
The ones built in the last couple of years are trash IMO. Obviously I
haven't used EVERY model that they make so that's only an opinion but I
would be leary of them. My data and time are a lot more valuable than the
drive so why take a chance?
Their Momentus laptop drives
I also apply this logic to why the latest 300GB
Maxtor disk lasts six to
eight months before dying, as opposed to any number of <100MB disks that
Never had a problem with Maxtors, aside from a 6-year-old 90845D4 (8.45GB)
DiamondMax that failed earlier this year.
Anyone know if Seagate's offerings are any good? are interesting, and I've got a 4.5GB U4 and a 6GB
Medalist here that work
fine - 1997 and 1998 manufacture dates. I seem to recall a hideously bad
batch of 2GB drives a few years back, 1995/1996 fab dates IIRC.
I've also got an 850MB Maxtor (7850AV), a 420MB Conner (CP420?), a 120MB
Fujitsu and an 80MB IBM here that just won't die...
I have a LOT of old drives that just keep running and running and
running. And I used to really like the Maxtors but the stuff made in the
last few years just seems to be crap. Like someone else mentioned, I
started having lots of problems when they went to the 7200 RPM and faster
drives. They all ran hot and were noisy and failed early. However this
IBM(?) drive is working fine and is quiet and cool.
Joe
Later.
--
Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB,
philpem at philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice,
http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI
... BS (bee ess): n. An uninformed statement.
11:47 a.m.
On Wed, 2005-05-04 at 07:06 -0700, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Jules Richardson wrote:
Heh heh, I remember in the mid/late 90's I had a HD floppy (Verbatim I
think it was) that just would not die. It probably went through a full
data cycle / format twice a week on average for many years and refused
to ever throw up a bad block.
You're right though; I think I'll just pitch these boxes of new media in
the bin and fetch some surplus used media down from the loft to keep by
the desk - at least it works!
cheers
J.
(I'm trying to remain cheerful here whilst
attempting to find a floppy
that actually works 100%...)
Once you do find one, hang on to it. They're becoming as precious as
gold.
12:57 p.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
Heh heh, I remember in the mid/late 90's I had a
HD floppy (Verbatim I
think it was) that just would not die. It probably went through a full
data cycle / format twice a week on average for many years and refused
to ever throw up a bad block.
It performed well BECAUSE you put it through a format twice a week. You can
punch a hole in the other side of a DDSD 720K disk and use it as a DSHD 1.44MB
floppy 100% reliably *as long as you write to it once a week*. I did this in
college to transfer data between friends every day (early 1990s, no networking)
-- I took the school-issued DSDD disks and burnt a hole on the other side with
my soldiering iron to make them work as 1.44MB disks. They were formatted once
a month and written to at least once a day.
I found a few of them a few years ago and tried to read them -- not a single
single track was error-free :-)
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
12:53 p.m.
Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
That's a really good question. I'd like an
answer myself. I routinely
read disks that are 20-25-30 years old with few problems, yet I can't walk
10 feet to another computer and recover a file I just copied onto a modern
3.5" disk without the disk going bad. Go figure.
Two words: Track density. Old 5.25" disks spread (in the case of IBM PC-land)
180KB per side of 5.25" surface area... later disks crammed four times as much
in roughly half the surface area. I have had exactly one 5.25" disk go bad in
storage in the last 25 years, but my 3.5" disks haven't been as lucky.
Once you do find one, hang on to it. They're
becoming as precious as
gold.
ebay auctions are good for lots of 100 or more 3.5" disks for $15 or so...
they're old disks, so the quality is probably better, and you can format them
all and ditch the ones that have errors. Works for me.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
2:08 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Leonard" <trixter at oldskool.org>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 12:53 PM
Subject: Re: Modern floppy disk question...
PC-land)
Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
> That's a really good question. I'd like an answer myself. I routinely
> read disks that are 20-25-30 years old with few problems, yet I can't
walk
> 10 feet to another computer and recover a file I
just copied onto a
modern
3.5" disk
without the disk going bad. Go figure.
Two words: Track density. Old 5.25" disks spread (in the case of IBM
180KB per side of 5.25" surface area... later
disks crammed four times as
much
in roughly half the surface area. I have had exactly
one 5.25" disk go
bad in
storage in the last 25 years, but my 3.5" disks
haven't been as lucky.
them
Once you do find one, hang on to it. They're
becoming as precious as
gold.
ebay auctions are good for lots of 100 or more 3.5" disks for $15 or so...
they're old disks, so the quality is probably better, and you can format all and ditch the ones that have errors. Works for
me.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)
http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project?
http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at
http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
ebay currently has a seller selling Mac formatted 1.44 disks for $6.99 BIN
and $5 shipping for 250PCs
look for quasiman Item number 5191185070
3:25 p.m.
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Jim Leonard wrote:
Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
This being the case, it still doesn't explain, as Jules edified, why
contemporary 3.5" disks suck and older 3.5" media worked fine.
It also wouldn't explain why we have 300GB hard drives today that work
just as reliably if not more so than 10MB drives of 20 years ago.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
That's a really good question. I'd like
an answer myself. I routinely
read disks that are 20-25-30 years old with few problems, yet I can't walk
10 feet to another computer and recover a file I just copied onto a modern
3.5" disk without the disk going bad. Go figure.
Two words: Track density. Old 5.25" disks spread (in the case of IBM
PC-land) 180KB per side of 5.25" surface area... later disks crammed
four times as much in roughly half the surface area. I have had exactly
one 5.25" disk go bad in storage in the last 25 years, but my 3.5" disks
haven't been as lucky. 
5 May
5 May
3:19 p.m.
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
It also wouldn't explain why we have 300GB hard
drives today that work
just as reliably if not more so than 10MB drives of 20 years ago.
When fixed rotating magnetic memory occupies the same
industrial/economic niche as floppies, it will be just as crappy.
Remember, radio tubes went through the same thing. Filamentary
lightbulbs are similar now, Sylvania is about the only
manufacturer of them domesically (US) and they suck.
4 May
4 May
3:28 p.m.
Jim wrote:
Two words: Track density. Old 5.25" disks
spread (in the case of IBM
PC-land)
Track density is definitely NOT the problem. The track density of a
720K 3.5" floppy is so low compared to the flux density along a track that
the former is essentially irrelevant. Track density is 135.5 TPI, but
flux density ranges from 4885.8 FTPI on track 0 side 0 to 8323.0 FTPI
on track 79 of side 1. (Double those FTPI numbers for 1440K disks.)
The increases to the FTPI were accompanied by changes to the oxide
formulation to have higher coercivity. Most 720K 3.5" disks from the
early 1980s and 1440K 3.5" disks from the late 1980s are fine, though
there was some bad stuff back then as well. But today it seems that
none of it is good. It's definitely the quality of newly manufactured
media at fault, since the older media still works well.
Eric
5:06 p.m.
Eric Smith wrote:
Track density is definitely NOT the problem. The
track density of a
720K 3.5" floppy is so low compared to the flux density along a track that
the former is essentially irrelevant. Track density is 135.5 TPI, but
flux density ranges from 4885.8 FTPI on track 0 side 0 to 8323.0 FTPI
on track 79 of side 1. (Double those FTPI numbers for 1440K disks.)
The increases to the FTPI were accompanied by changes to the oxide
formulation to have higher coercivity. Most 720K 3.5" disks from the
early 1980s and 1440K 3.5" disks from the late 1980s are fine, though
there was some bad stuff back then as well. But today it seems that
none of it is good. It's definitely the quality of newly manufactured
media at fault, since the older media still works well.
I stand corrected :-) To which I can only conjecture: Today there is less of
a demand for 3.5" media, so maybe the lack of competition/demand results in an
inferior product due to cost cutting?
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
6:04 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Leonard" <trixter at oldskool.org>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: Modern floppy disk question...
I stand corrected :-) To which I can only conjecture:
Today there is
less of
a demand for 3.5" media, so maybe the lack of
competition/demand results
in an
inferior product due to cost cutting?
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)
http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project?
http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at
http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
Could it just be that few if any places manufacture 3.5" floppies anymore
and all the stock being sold today was made back in the 90's? I could see a
company buying a large lot at a good deal when floppies were somewhat still
used and just selling small quantities of that stash to this day.
For a company making commodity media to make a profit they would need to
have some decent volume in production at any one time, so most if not all of
those companies have probably retooled for some other semi profitable line
of products after making a last run or 2 of floppies.
If my theory is correct then a large stack of media is sitting in a
warehouse going from a very hot climate in summer to a very cold one in
winter over a period of years, maybe weakening the glue holding the magnetic
material on the disk or slightly warping the housing just enough to cause
more then the usual problems to the end user. Either that or they had to
change the process of making the media because of new EPA regulations on
adhesives or something.
Most of the cheap floppies I have purchased in the last few years were from
duplicators dumping their old stock since they don't need it anymore and
those disks work great in my 8/16bit systems. The cheap low grade generic
floppies I purchased bulk back in the 90's have had some reliability issues
being written to once and then stored in disk boxes.
7:01 p.m.
Jim wrote:
To which I can only conjecture: Today there is less
of
a demand for 3.5" media, so maybe the lack of competition/demand results
in an inferior product due to cost cutting?
I think they went bad because of *intense* competition.
Now that the competition may be easing up, the result is that the price
goes up, but the quality doesn't. The manufacturers have learned that
they can sell crap, so they have no incentive to improve the product.
Eric
5 May
5 May
3:01 a.m.
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Jim Leonard wrote:
I stand corrected :-) To which I can only conjecture:
Today there is less of
a demand for 3.5" media, so maybe the lack of competition/demand results in an
inferior product due to cost cutting?
i.e. Crapitalism :)
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
4 May
4 May
10:07 a.m.
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Jules Richardson wrote:
Anyone know why modern floppy disks are such total
junk? They seem to
often develop problems after only one or two writes - whereas back in
the day they were always pretty reliable.
To add to the problem- why are modern floppy drives such junk? I was
recently doing a 20-disk transfer between two computers, and after the
second pass I had one disk that developed some outrageous errors in a
particular band of tracks. So I looked at it- the drive had scratched the
oxide off the media in a nice circle on one side around track 50. Didn't
do it to any other disks in the stack. This had happened to me before, on
other drives (all modern) with very little usage, and had never happened
to me using pre-1995-or-so hardware with tons more usage.
(All the drives I'm referring to are 3-1/2" of course)
Richard
11:32 a.m.
Richard wrote:
To add to the problem- why are modern floppy drives
such junk?
For $10 you expect quality? (Other than the quality of being junk?)
It's another triumph of crapitalism. When everyone (to a first
approximation) is more concerned about price than quality, all the
manufacturers produce low-priced junk, because there's not enough
demand for a quality product to make it worthwhile to manufacture.
If someone tried to sell a really high-quality drive today, they'd
probably have to price it at $75 or more, and how many could they
sell at that price?
I haven't had too much trouble with new Teac drives purchased in the
last year.
I really don't understand how they can manufacture these, ship them
across the ocean to a distributor, the distributor ships them to a
dealer, and the dealer sells them to me for $10, and someone makes
a profit at each step. Making a floppy drive (even not a very good
one) still requires some precision manufacturing. If all they had to
do was pick them up off the ground (like a rock), put it in a box, ship
it across the ocean, to the distributor, to the dealer, and finally to
me, I'd have expected to have to pay more than $10 for it.
Eric
2:45 p.m.
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Eric Smith wrote:
If all they had to
do was pick them up off the ground (like a rock), put it in a box, ship
it across the ocean, to the distributor, to the dealer, and finally to
me, I'd have expected to have to pay more than $10 for it.
ROFL! No shit -- for $12 I bought a replacement 3.5" floppy. All
in all, it's pretty spectacular; this incredibly precise (though
not precise enough :-) metal plastic and silicon thing.
That's corporate culture for you. 99.9% of the western monied
world rarely uses floppies at all, and even then only occasionally
for the odd legacy floppy. Basically no one gives a shit anymore
about floppies.
There used to be entire magazine articles devoted to them. Today,
many computer owners don't even know what one is.
Floppies suck (as much as I like my 8" Shugart), good riddance.
Let's bring back 1/2" magtape instead! Much cooler! Compare old
sci fi movies; how many use burping floppy drives to impress?
Zilch -- boring! A room full of floor-standing vacuum column tape
drives! Tres f*cking cool!
1:38 p.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
Anyone know why modern floppy disks are such total
junk? They seem to
often develop problems after only one or two writes - whereas back in
the day they were always pretty reliable.
I've said this several times recently - there are no good
new-manufacture floppies on the shelves. There may be somebody still
making good ones, but they don't sell through the major stores.
In my job I use a lot of floppies as PeeCee boot disks, backup
demonstrations, driver distribution, etc, and still go through a couple
hundred 3.5" floppies a year. I'm ashamed to say that all my old stock
is reserved for my own use, but what I hand out in class or to clients
gets a LLF and verification, then a read test after the data's written,
on *every* floppy.
Believe it or not, Imation seems to be about the best anymore with a
15-20% first-write failure. If they survive the first low-level format,
they're generally dependable for a dozen or so read-write cycles.
IBM sends me unmarked black disks which I think are 3M, and about 35%
of those fail the first LLF. They're also extremely likely to leave the
shutter in the drive.
I can't imagine the people who made these things
threw out all the
decent equipment and replaced it with something made out of snot and
string. Presumably it's a quality control issue?
I just assume it's more of the "yeah, so whatcha gonna do about it?"
attitude that permeates manufactured products in the 21st century.
About 25% of Sony branded floppies seem to die on the
first format,
which is nice...
I just snark up everything that shows up at the local thrifts.
Maybe it's a cunning ploy by the manufacturers to
make otherwise-awful
blank CDs look better :-)
I think you attribute an invalid level of organization and
intelligence to said manufacturers....
(I'm trying to remain cheerful here whilst
attempting to find a floppy
that actually works 100%...)
Pretty pathetic when the old AOL floppies are better than you can buy.
Doc
2:50 p.m.
On Wed, 4 May 2005, Jules Richardson wrote:
Anyone know why modern floppy disks are such total
junk? They seem to
often develop problems after only one or two writes - whereas back in
the day they were always pretty reliable.
Which OS are you talking about?
In spite of my negative rant, I do occasionally use 3.5" floppies.
Usually floor-sweepings, whatever crappy thing I have laying about
(as it's usually non-critical xfers to old machines, that sort of
thing, not precious legacy disks).
I have few problems, but I do all floppy copying under linux or
freebsd. I wouldn't be surprised if later microsoft OS products
severely compromise floppy code out of disinterest.
I use USB floppy drives, and one refurb HP desktop that runs WinXP
Pro. No idea what drive is in it, but it always works. Can't
recall a media problem on it.
5:03 p.m.
On 5/4/05, Tom Jennings <tomj at wps.com> wrote:
I use USB floppy drives, and one refurb HP desktop
that runs WinXP
Pro. No idea what drive is in it, but it always works. Can't
recall a media problem on it.
Allison made the point that fans sucking dirt into the drive probably
causes problems. I've found the same thing.
Using an external floppy drive, USB or otherwise, is one way to take
the fan out of the equation.
-- John.
5 May
5 May
5:46 a.m.
John Hogerhuis wrote:
On 5/4/05, Tom Jennings <tomj at wps.com>
wrote:
I have to say, I've not had any problems with external floppies on my
IBM lappy at work - and one of the external drives is ex-field engineer
"boot kit" and thus has been rattled about in the back of a Vectra
(Vauxhall, not HP) with keyboards, toolboxes and ATM parts...
Gordon.
I use USB floppy drives, and one refurb HP desktop
that runs WinXP
Pro. No idea what drive is in it, but it always works. Can't
recall a media problem on it.
Allison made the point that fans sucking dirt into the drive probably
causes problems. I've found the same thing.
Using an external floppy drive, USB or otherwise, is one way to take
the fan out of the equation.
-- John. 
4 May
4 May
6:26 p.m.
Anyone know why modern floppy disks are such total junk? They seem to
Yes, they're too damn cheap....
I can rememebr paying \pounds 3.00 for a 5.25" floppy disk. One disk, not
a box of 10. My old model 1 stored 88K on such a disk. And those disks
are still readable 20+ years later.
I now get 10 1.44M disks for not much more, and I'm lucky if they're
readable a week later. Hmm.. Some progress :-(
Floppy drives are the same. My first drive cost over \pounds 200. It was
properly aligned and still works (as do plenty of older 8" drives here,
of course). Modern drives seem to cost about \pounds 20, and a very
poorly made. I've stuck an aligment disk in some of them to find the
alignment is marginal (and that's being kind) on brand new drives.
You guessed it. I'd like to be able to pay \pounds 200 or more for a
modern drive, provided it came properly aligned and I could get real
manuals for it (I have service manuals -- real service manuals -- for
some of the older drives).
(I'm trying to remain cheerful here whilst
attempting to find a floppy
that actually works 100%...)
A few years back I was given 2 carrier bags full of bulk-erased RX50
disks -- they'd come from DEC software distribution kits, etc. I've yet
to have one of those fail to format and work reliably -- even as double
sided 80 cylinder (the RX50 was, of course, a single-sided drive).
-tony
5 May
5 May
4:06 a.m.
Hi,
Tony Duell said:
Back in the mid '80s I got fed up with the high price charged for
floppies in the shops and started to bulk-buy them. To make up
sufficently large orders to get a decent discount I started to sell
them locally to various users, including a school. I bought "noname"
disks in thousands and repackaged them in tens and sold them with a
lifetime no-quibble guarantee, if one failed I'd replace it. I never
got any returns, so they were probably pretty reliable.
I'm still using some of the disks and the lockable disk boxes my supplier
threw in as freebies...
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
Anyone know why modern floppy disks are such total junk? They seem to
Yes, they're too damn cheap....
I can rememebr paying \pounds 3.00 for a 5.25" floppy disk. One disk, not
a box of 10. My old model 1 stored 88K on such a disk. And those disks
are still readable 20+ years later.
7016
days inactive
7020
days old
42 comments
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