Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ukma!rutgers!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Have you checked your floppies lately?
Message-ID: <28718@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 10 Apr 89 17:07:31 GMT
Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps
Lines: 35

This may seem like a strange comment, but have you checked your floppies
lately? The reason I ask such a strange thing is because over the weekend I
went in and cleaned up my floppy libraries (actually, converted them to
Retrospect -- I now have *lots* of spare floppies at home....) and did some
of the "spring computer houselcleaning" that rarely seems to be done.

One of the things I did was re-initialize all my DiskFit backups. The scary
part was that out of about 60 floppies (three different sets of full backups
over two machines) three of them failed initialization -- there were three
bad floppies in my backups. 

I found this out at the perfect time -- when I could throw out the floppies
and build new backup sets. But think of the alternatives -- I was writing
critical data to a floppy with a defect, and even though the floppy verified
after being written, would you want to trust that you'll be able to read it
back off? Not me...

How old are the floppies in your backups? When was the last time you checked
that you could read them? I don't know about you, but I'm cycling my backup
sets every six months -- and if I can't re-format the old floppies, they go
away. 

Think of it as a cautionary tale. Floppies do wear out -- and if you do
regular backups, the floppies in a backup set are going to get more wear
than the rest of your disks -- and you're unlikely to realize it's worn out
until the wrong possible moment.....


Chuq Von Rospach       -*-      Editor,OtherRealms      -*-      Member SFWA
chuq@apple.com  -*-  CI$: 73317,635  -*-  Delphi: CHUQ  -*-  Applelink: CHUQ
      [This is myself speaking. No company can control my thoughts.]

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