Floppy Disk Drives ? Do they rot if not used ?

[Al Dykes]

I use my floppy drive about once a year these days and it seems I'm
having a real problem finding a floppy that has no bad blocks when
formatted. The last box of disks is a couple years old and I've got a
pile that are older than that.

It occurs to me, is the problem with my floppy drive ? Do the heads
on these things degrade if they are not being used regularly ?

 

[Rod Speed]

I use my floppy drive about once a year these
days and it seems I'm having a real problem finding
a floppy that has no bad blocks when formatted.

Yeah, I avoid them as much as I can now.

The last box of disks is a couple years old
and I've got a pile that are older than that.

It occurs to me, is the problem with my floppy drive ?

Its just the technology, well past its useby date now.

Do the heads on these things degrade
if they are not being used regularly ?

Nope.

 

[CWatters]

Nope.

...but the drive might fill up with dust

 

[fedrive]

Floppy disk are contact recording devices based on magnetic particles.

Ovetime depending on the manufacturer the particles realign themselves.

Its like having 2 north poles constanting opposing each other or a
north and south pole wanting to migrate togeher where eventually the
magnetics are able to find their happy medium.

Either due to weak gamma ferric oxide particles or the binder that
suspends and holds the particles in place.

I doubt contamination is the issue, but it wouldn't hurt to run an
isoprophyl cleaning disk before to make sure dont scratch the floppy.

Some floppies are very hard and scratch easier than others.

Floppies are supposed to be able to hold data up to ten years but if
you havent used the floppies for awhile you might need to use chkdsk
a:/f or some other program to verify and fix any soft errors.

 

[Rod Speed]

..but the drive might fill up with dust

Sure, its theoretically possible, but I find that even
with floppy drives that are in cases with no covers
used, so the power supply fan cant be sucking dust in thru
the floppy drive, and which are in pretty clean environments,
you still get that problem with bads on the media.

Its a technology well past its useby date
now, better only than those stupid audio
cassettes used in the era before them.

 

[Guest]

I use my floppy drive about once a year these days
and it seems I'm having a real problem finding a
floppy that has no bad blocks when formatted.

It occurs to me, is the problem with my floppy drive ?
Do the heads on these things degrade if they are not
being used regularly ?

I have floppy disks from the late 1970s that were still readable a few
years ago with floppy controllers with poor data recovery ability.

Try sealing the drive against dust by Scotch taping every gap, and put
a cover over the front while it's not in use, even over the pushbutton.


Dust can affect not only the heads but also the optical track 0 sensor
(gap that a shutter on the head assembly blocks when the heads move all
the way out) and the head positioner lead screw (grease becomes gummy
from dust, but golden lead screws use no lube). Also head alignment
can eventually go bad, regardless of dust, but adjusting it can be very
frustrating without a special alignment disk (contains odd signals and
cannot be copied) or oscilloscope.

You may want to configure your BIOS to enable the floppy disk seek at
boot-up to exercise the lead screw.

 

[zero]

might sound daft but . . .

if you have various boot floppys for various things

can you just fo a 1-for-1 copy , one floppy to a cd
and expect to boot from the cd , given BIOS setting of course ?

thanks

 

[Rod Speed]

might sound daft but . . .
Nope.

if you have various boot floppys for various things

can you just fo a 1-for-1 copy , one floppy to a cd and
expect to boot from the cd , given BIOS setting of course ?

Nope, but there are utes around that will take the
bootable floppy and make a bootable CD from that.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I use my floppy drive about once a year these days and it seems I'm
having a real problem finding a floppy that has no bad blocks when
formatted. The last box of disks is a couple years old and I've got a
pile that are older than that.

It occurs to me, is the problem with my floppy drive ? Do the heads
on these things degrade if they are not being used regularly ?

No. I have a very old 5.25" drive that still works. Maybe
your set-up draws a lot of air through it and it fills up
with dust?

On the other hand the data and format on the floppies does rot.
Still a new format should fix that for most.

Arno

 

[zero]

go on rod - give us a clue

and i wager the reply might include google !

 

[Eric Gisin]

Perhaps you should just read the documentaton for your CD burning app.

 

[Rod Speed]

go on rod - give us a clue

How many of you are there between those ears, child ?

Nero and Roxio will both do it and if you want something
rather more fancy there is stuff like EasyBoot too.

and i wager the reply might include google !

How much was that wager for again ?

Wipe that smirk off your face, child, this is no laughing matter.

 

[Ardent]

X-No-Archive: yes

It occurs to me, is the problem with my floppy drive ? Do the heads
on these things degrade if they are not being used regularly ?

I have encountered the same problem and now I use a head cleaner
before I start using the drive.

Possibly some debris that got stuck in the head in an earlier use or a
dust particle that got stuck hard damages the disc when used after a
long interval.

HTH

 

[Guest]

X-No-Archive: yes



I have encountered the same problem and now I use a head cleaner
before I start using the drive.

Possibly some debris that got stuck in the head in an earlier use or a
dust particle that got stuck hard damages the disc when used after a
long interval.

HTH

I've also noticed that floppy drives that weren't used for a long
period of time seemed to develop problems. There's a saying that
the used doorstep doesn't rot. Since rust is iron oxide, perhaps
deposits on the heads from media contribute to rusting...rust rot!

 

[Eric Gisin]

There is no iron oxide on floppies. Perhaps 5.25" 720K did.

 

[zero]

well - sense of humour bypass methinks

i know cd apps can do bootable cds i thought there was
something more to converting a floppy to cd than that

chill out "child"

 

[Rod Speed]

well - sense of humour bypass methinks

Clearly is in your case.

Are you actually so SoH crippled that that comment about
your smirk went completely over your head and stuck in the
wall behind you with a resounding clang ? Obviously...

i know cd apps can do bootable cds i thought there was
something more to converting a floppy to cd than that

Nope, not unless you want to add a menu on top of that so
you can have a number of bootable floppys on a single CD
and select which one you actually want to boot at boot time.

chill out "child"

Cant get any chillier than I am currently thanks, child.

I told you to wipe that smirk off your face, child, this is no laughing matter.

 

[allan]

just buy a new floppy for a fiver

Clearly is in your case.

Are you actually so SoH crippled that that comment about
your smirk went completely over your head and stuck in the
wall behind you with a resounding clang ? Obviously...


Nope, not unless you want to add a menu on top of that so
you can have a number of bootable floppys on a single CD
and select which one you actually want to boot at boot time.


Cant get any chillier than I am currently thanks, child.


I told you to wipe that smirk off your face, child, this is no laughing matter.

 

[Rod Speed]

just buy a new floppy for a fiver

Hell of a lot more convenient to have the utes
you use on a CD with a decent boot menu.

You dont even need to make it yourself, there's quite a few around
already done, and some dont even bother with DOS anymore too.