Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!sun!imagen!atari!portal!cup.portal.com!RCH From: RCH@cup.portal.com (Ric C Helton) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit Subject: Data Integrity Message-ID: <15514@cup.portal.com> Date: 8 Mar 89 01:14:05 GMT References: <1113@sdcc13.ucsd.EDU> <15484@cup.portal.com> Organization: The Portal System (TM) Lines: 20 BobR asks about whether we should worry about our Atari disks that are getting up there (relatively) in years. I think that the same principles that apply to other magnetic media would apply here: Properly stored media in correct temperature tolerances and environmental conditions (i.e. dust-free, magnetically neutral) should last indefinitely. Disks that are used every day, naturally, should be backed up. Wear & tear on a data disk is much less than on, say, cassette tape, but there *is* wear and tear. What amazes *me* is the number of people I have found recently who do not back up commercial disks (in my opinion the lowest quality diskette available! :-) and run with only *one* copy of DOS. A guy who calls my BBS was down for a week until someone supplied him with a copy of SpartaDOS; he had accidentally formatted his only copy. *tsk* *tsk* I think the integrity of data depends entirely on use & wear, and not "disk rot," whatever that may be! ;-) -Ric Helton RCH@cup.portal.com -Freestyle BBS 404/546-8256