Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!genie.csri!wayne
From: wayne@csri.toronto.edu (Wayne Hayes)
Subject: Re: 5.25" Diskettes for Storage
Message-ID: <1989Jun18.170109.11616@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Summary: floppies last longer now, or yours were cheap
Organization: University of Toronto, CSRI
References: <2515@lll-lcc.UUCP>

In article <2515@lll-lcc.UUCP> rzh@lll-lcc.UUCP (Roger Hanscom) writes:
>
>  Just recently, I discovered that about twenty 5.25" floppies
>written some 6-7 years ago are completely munged.  The content

Boy, you must have bought some pretty cheap disks back then. :-)
Seriously, I still have programs on 5.25" floppies that I bought for
my old Commodore 64 back in june 1983. Some of these disks were
not used much, some were used often for about 5 years. I still
use some stuff occasionally (the old 64 is still sitting beside my 
trusty Amiga and AT), and have had problems with only one disk, that
is STILL usable if I let it sit in the drive for awhile. (There
are certain physical reasons why a warm disk works better than
a cold disk.) So that's the first thing you should try. Put the
disk in the drive and leave it there for an hour or so with the
machine running. It might come back to life long enough to back
it up.
	I store all my disks in one of those enclosed $15 plastic boxes
that store about 50 disks. The box is always covered in dust, but
the disks are fine inside.

	Hope this helps!

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"Open the pod bay doors, HAL."   "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
Wayne Hayes	INTERNET: wayne@csri.toronto.edu	CompuServe: 72401,3525