1. RE: [OT] Another floppy question
- Posted by rforno at tutopia.com
Jun 11, 2003
Regarding CDs, I have mixed experiences. Some very few commercial music CDs
(mostly hyperion and ASV brands) became "oxidized" (developed a yellowish
color from
the outer tracks growing towards the center) and unreadable after 3 - 5
years. All CD-Rs I wrote (music and data) are still usable, but I have only
CD-Rs since 3 years ago. However, a friend of mine wrote for me music CD-Rs
with labels glued to them, and these became unreadable after about 6 months.
I don't know whether the problem originated in the labels or the CD brand
(they were "generic"). They say you should not stick identifying labels to
CDs.
Regards.
----- Original Message -----
From: <irvm at ellijay.com>
To: EUforum <EUforum at topica.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 11:06 AM
Subject: Re: [OT] another floppy question
>
>
> On Tuesday 10 June 2003 04:51 pm, Igor wrote:
>
> > > I expect stuff in the fridge to go bad after
> > > a while, but disks?
> > >
> > > Irv
> >
> > Strange ...
> >
> > These days I burned CD-R with my old stuff from floppies.
> >
> > 470 - (1.44/3'')- 3 bad, 43 have 1..2 files with bad sectors.
> > 138 - (1.2/5'') - all good.
> > 80 - (720k/5'')- 3 have 1 file with bad sector.
> >
> > Maybe, just the hot climate of your land?
>
> Perhaps.
> If I had any software worth saving, I would try to write it to CDs.
> Does anyone yet have a good idea of how long CDs will remain
> readable?
>
> (Am I wrong in thinking that paper tape may be the best archival
> method? :)
>
> Irv
>
>
>
> TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE!
>
>
2. RE: [OT] Another floppy question
- Posted by rforno at tutopia.com
Jun 11, 2003
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Irv:
Strange. This is contrary to my experience. While 3 1/2 floppies I bought
and used about 7 years ago are still perfectly good (no data loss, capable
of being written over and formatted), floppies bought lately (less than a
year ago) develop errors easily (I got "bad sectors" in about half of them).
They got what is called "infantile mortality". In fact, once a floppy has
been successfully used 5 - 10 times, it rarely develops defects later on.
Have you tried to format them from either stand-alone DOS or a DOS window in
W98 using the /u option (format a: /u)?
There is also a program than can format a floppy with track 0 bad. I'm
attaching it, although its results are not very satisfactory. It contains C
source code. Maybe it can be helpful.
Regards.
----- Original Message -----
From: <irvm at ellijay.com>
To: EUforum <EUforum at topica.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 6:23 AM
Subject: [OT] another floppy question
>
>
> I dug out a box of about 200 floppy disks today - old stuff I wrote 5-10
years
> ago, and tried to look thru them.
>
> Some - maybe 1 out of 3 - could be read, the others, which I'm sure *used*
to
> have data on them, were unreadable. OK, so maybe data fades away
> over the years, no great loss. I'll just re-format these disks and use
them
> for something else, right ?
>
> Wrong. Barely 1 out of 10 could be formatted using DOS 6.2, Windows 98,
> or Linux.
> The rest return errors, usually in track 0.
>
> So I'm stuck with a huge pile of unusable disks.
> Before you say something is wrong with my disk drive, let me point out
that
> I have 3 pc's and 5 floppy drives. Results are the same regardless.
>
> I expect stuff in the fridge to go bad after a while, but disks?
>
> Irv
>
>
>
> TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE!
>
>
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