Floppy disc media reliability tests

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FUBARinSFO

Hi:

I'm looking for the most reliable floppy disc media. (1440KB)

Does anybody know of a site that has actually tested various brands of
floppy media? Or a research report perhaps?

Thank you in advance for your help.

-- Roy Zider
 
Philo:

Yes, I do think that it was more likely to get high-quality floppy
disc media ten years ago than it is now. But I've got Sony colored
discs that have failed, along with Memorex and Office Depot. I'm
looking for some current data, hopefully test-based, on who is putting
out good media today.

-- Roy
 
Somewhere on teh intarweb "FUBARinSFO" typed:
Philo:

Yes, I do think that it was more likely to get high-quality floppy
disc media ten years ago than it is now. But I've got Sony colored
discs that have failed, along with Memorex and Office Depot. I'm
looking for some current data, hopefully test-based, on who is putting
out good media today.
Click to expand...

Roy, you might just as well ask who makes the best papyrus scrolls too. Both
are technologies well beyond their use-by date and consequently it would
seem that, while both are still available, nobody is bothering to make
quality a priority for either.
 
In message <[email protected]> "~misfit~"
Roy, you might just as well ask who makes the best papyrus scrolls too. Both
are technologies well beyond their use-by date and consequently it would
seem that, while both are still available, nobody is bothering to make
quality a priority for either.
Click to expand...

Worse, you get old stock, and floppies don't exactly have the most
fantastic shelf life to begin with.
 
kony (and other):

Points well made, and taken. I think more than a few of us have a
computer museum. I won't bore you with the sad tale of shipping off
(giving away) two pallets of Apple ][ gear. But DOS lives on, and I
still do my GL on it using Infostar.

But the point here you are making is to get rid of floppies in the
system. I'm doing spring housecleaning, and doing just that -- but
have considerably more than a dozen or two lying around. And I do use
them -- memtest86, for instance, when the CD doesn't work or isn't
installed.

FWIW, I've been using a floppy with winnt.sif on it for an unattended
install of Windows XP for a while now, which obviates the requirement
to burn a refreshed boot CD every time I make a change to the boot
process or driver loading. A floppy for each machine, easily
modified, is easier to keep track of than the CDs (at the moment).

So I cede to anyone who says floppies are losers. I just want to find
out if there are any current tests out there of what, if any, are any
good any more.

-- Roy

P.S.: I have a couple of Shugart 5 1/4 inch 720KB quad density drive
still available, in the unlikely event anybody is anxious to offload
to another media their Fastback backups they made to this media. It's
one of the projects in my extensive (and growing) backlog.
 
FUBARinSFO said:
I'm looking for the most reliable floppy disc media. (1440KB)

Does anybody know of a site that has actually tested various brands of
floppy media? Or a research report perhaps?
Click to expand...

I believe you have to go back to the 1980s to find reviews of floppy
media, but generally the shiniest disks are the best ones. If you're
using old stock, look for 3M, Verbatim, BASF, Kodak, Sony, Fuji,
Maxell, which may still be warranted.

Don't use 360K or 720K low density disks at 1.44M (3.5") or 1.2M
(5.25"), despite some "experts" wrongly claiming the disks are
identical and the formatting process weeds out marginal sectors.
Disks used that way will not be reliable for long, and in reality the
magnetic coatings for high and low density disks are very different in
thickness and grain size. You can verify this by looking through the
read/write window under strong light. 360K and 720K disks completely
block the light, 1.44M and 1.2M disks are transparent brown or red.

The best way to test MFM floppy disks (high or low density) is to fill
them with either a b66d or 6db6 hexadecimal pattern. Unfortunately
almost no formatting utilities write this 2-byte pattern but instead
write a 1-byte pattern that will pass far more marginal sectors. I
strongly recommend you test any unknown brands or old disks with b66d
or 6db6.

Don't rule out bad floppy disk drives since they can develop dirty
head positioners (wash off dust or sticky grease and apply new grease
to lead screws, except gold colored ones mean to run dry) or Track 0
sensors (also blow out dust), but track misalignment is also common,
even on TEACs and hard to adjust.
 
FUBARinSFO said:
P.S.: I have a couple of Shugart 5 1/4 inch 720KB quad density drive
still available, in the unlikely event anybody is anxious to offload
to another media their Fastback backups they made to this media. It's
one of the projects in my extensive (and growing) backlog.
Click to expand...

Will you offer to help buyers who encounter the pin34 Ready/
Disk_Changed signal problem? :)

I had some 3" tall Shugart 5.25" 720K drives, and they didn't read
disks nearly as well as my BASF 720K drives or any 1.2M drives could.
This wasn't noticeable with IBM PCs, but the aftermarket floppy
controller for my Radio Shack TRS-80 had a poor data recovery circuit
design and didn't like the Shugart.
 
Your comments must reflect some extensive experience with these media
and drives.

I've still got several hundred 5 1/4" media in storage -- I can't
imagine that most of it is not unrecoverable. But we'll see.

In the meantime, I've recertified my 3 1/2" media, tossed most of
them, and went and bought a 50-pk of Verbatim. Surprisingly, some of
the old media were still good after ten years. This should solve the
problem for the moment.

Thanks for all your comments.

-- Roy Zider
 
Will you offer to help buyers who encounter the pin34 Ready/
Disk_Changed signal problem? :)
Click to expand...

I do seem to remember something about that problem, now that you
mention it. Impressive!
 
In message
<51feacb9-8992-4678-ad17-5ca7f01a232a@k10g2000prm.googlegroups.com>
FUBARinSFO said:
I can't
imagine that most of it is not unrecoverable.
Click to expand...

You might want to add another negative just to clarify that sentence.
 
FUBARinSFO said:
Thanks.
Click to expand...

Good catch, guys. I wonder what I was thinking when I wrote that.
WTF? At the moment, I have no idea if the old stuff is recoverabe or
not.

-- Roy
 
In message
<bf819520-754e-4725-b2a4-5c218b70b108@z16g2000prn.googlegroups.com>
FUBARinSFO said:
Good catch, guys. I wonder what I was thinking when I wrote that.
WTF? At the moment, I have no idea if the old stuff is recoverabe or
not.
Click to expand...

If you do try, I will wish you all the best luck.
 
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