Comments on: 3 1/2″ disks vs the 5 1/4″ disks…

By: neozeed

neozeed — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:30:36 +0000

In reply to vdgg. which I think goes back to the density of the media...

By: vdgg

vdgg — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:18:27 +0000

I think that the only reliable 3’5 inch diskettes are the 720 Kb. I don’t understand why 1’44 Mb become standard. I have several 3’5 720 disks and all are readable.

p.d. Sorry for my English…

By: Yuhong Bao

Yuhong Bao — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:11:07 +0000

In reply to neozeed. Good thing that the 2.88s never became popular!

By: Frank

Frank — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:56:21 +0000

After this whole little discussion, I went back and tried to read my stack of 3.5″s I backed up about two years ago and three of those disks were already bad! They’ve sat next to the computer this whole time out of direct sunlight and the room was temperature controlled. Luckily, I had images on the drive as well (and online).

So guys, if you have /any/ floppy disks and the time I’d recommend you get WinImage and start backing them up now!

Frank

By: neozeed

neozeed — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:34:32 +0000

In reply to Michal Necasek.

bit density, I suppose that is what is fundamentally wrong… I’m finding more and more old 3 1/2″s have serious issues…

By: Michal Necasek

Michal Necasek — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 08:50:40 +0000

I have much the same experience. 5 1/4″ floppies are much more reliable than 3 1/2″, and in fact were back in the early 1990s. The 5 1/4″ media needs better handling and care to avoid physical damage, but the lower bit density seems to significantly contribute to the data integrity.

I’ve actually had pretty good experience with 20-25 year old 3 1/4″ media but they are definitely more sensitive.

By: Frank

Frank — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:27:22 +0000

The ones I have are a mix of originals and backups ranging from 1986 up to about 1992 or so.

Just a theory, but all of the backup disks were 3M and Verbatim and their quality feels well-built. Maybe that could also be part of it.

By: Tor

Tor — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:47:26 +0000

In reply to Frank.

Yeah, I hope to get some time to read those 8″ floppies somewhen during the next months. I have everything I need to get it done. Presumably I’ve got two ways of doing it: 1) With my current Linux setup for 5 1/4″ floppies, plus a D-bit fdadap adapter. This setup has been used by others and should work. Or 2) Via a Kryoflux adapter.

I also have access to a colleague’s Shugart 8″ drive, and, importantly, its original power supply.. which has got some _huge_ capacitors on board to handle the surges during some of the drive’s operational phases (my colleague told me he had tried the drive with a supposedly large enough PC PSU, but due to the surges it was useless).

And, re. what I wrote in that other thread, my 5 1/4″ and 3.5″ experiences match up pretty much exactly with the above story. I think my oldest 5 1/4″ floppies are from 1986. All the oldest read fine. Some of the floppies are original vendor floppies (from a minicomputer manufacturer, mostly), and some are my own backups. There were two 5 1/4″ floppies from around 1990 that I couldn’t read a single bit out of, so I think they must have been stored near a magnet or something at some point.

-Tor

By: Frank

Frank — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 19:05:01 +0000

I want to hear Tor’s experience on reading 8″ floppies if/when he is able to find time to verify their contents.

That’s some pretty rare stuff, and we’ve discussed the price and research involved in getting one on a ‘modern’ dos box (i.e. mid-late 90s era stuff).