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From: Brian.Gordon@f20.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Brian Gordon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Dead floppies
Message-ID: <613.2783DEC9@busker.fidonet.org>
Date: 28 Dec 90 06:37:23 GMT
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Reply-To: briang@bari.Eng.Sun.COM

In article <1990Dec24.142159.23900@slhisc.uucp> ken@slhisc.uucp (Ken Stamm)
writes:
<Concerning the Dying Floppy thread, here's something I've found that may be
<of interest:
<
<Sometimes, I've taken an 800K floppy diskette, not fresh, but used,
<that mounts fine on the desktop, and wanted to re-initialize it.
<I choose "Erase Disk", do it, and then the system sometimes comes back
<with "Initialization Failed!"
<
<Before throwing that floppy away, I've found that de-gaussing the floppy
<completely under a powerful bulk eraser (use the ones sold for videotapes,
<not audio cassettes, they put out a much stronger field)  (also, slowly
<part the floppy from the eraser before switching erase off)
<usually permits me to then initialize the disk successfully.
<
<Obviously, I'm not advocating using old floppies until the oxide wears off,
<but thought this phenomenon merited mention.
<
<Comments?

I use floppies for either of two reasons -- transfer media (taking data to a
different machine) or backup.  I compromise in that I buy bulk floppies (@
~$0.50) rather than small packaged ones (@ $1.00+).  After that, I figure, "Why
chance it?"  If I get 30 miles away from my home system carrying a floppy that
won't read, I'm out a lot more than 50 cents.  If I need to recover from a
backup, and the floppy is "bad", I'm typically out WAY more then 50 cents.

Once a floppy becomes suspect, even once, out it goes, no matter how easy it
might be to "recover" it.

--
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I Brian G. Gordon       briang@Sun.COM (if you trust exotic mailers)       
  I
I                       ...!sun!briangordon (if you route it yourself)     
  I
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 + Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.

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