Why do good floppy disks go bad?

[Jules Richardson]

On 04/07/2016 12:12 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> I'll go one step further and state that if you hear your drive
> squealing, throw the disk away and clean the heads before you insert
> another disk.

If you even get the opportunity. I remember a disk - it was either Parrot 
or Wabash, I loathe them in equal measure as they seem particularly prone 
to binder problems - once squeaking in a drive, immediately followed by a 
crunch as one of the drive heads parted company with the surrounding 
structure. The heads had only just been cleaned, so all it took was the 
single read attempt to destroy the drive.

Thankfully it's only happened to me the once, but it was annoying as it was 
in a vintage machine with dual drives, which means at some point I need to 
find a matching replacement (or replace the junk + good drive with a 
matched pair)

cheers

Jules