[Ti] [OT] Floppy problem

[Roger Snyder]

On 5/24/04 13:44, "John Griffin" wrote:

> I have a pile of work that I did
> in the '80's and '90's on 800k disks in MacWrite Pro and PageMaker 4 format.

On 5/24/04 14:02, "cheshirekat" wrote:

> It's possible, that by repeatedly trying the diskette in different
> computers, you may get lucky and find one that sees the data, but a good
> outcome is improbable - especially if they are very old. I've also heard
> that toggling the lock tab might help, though I've never witnessed it.
> Commercial diskettes use a different duplication process and usually last
> longer, but recorded ones are affected by storage conditions, dust,
> handling, magnetic interference, etc, at a quicker rate of deterioration
> without warning.

    My experience with making floppies (having made many back-ups before I
moved on to other means) was that in a set of disks, even if you checked
them right after backing up, 1-2% would be bad within the week, some more
within  months, and at least 5-20% if kept for six months.

    I'd expect floppies from the 80's would be mostly bad by now. (The 3 1/2
seem to last somewhat better than the older 5 1/4.)

-- 
Roger