OT -- keeping old floppy disks

"Stormin Mormon" wrote in news:FWc0r.63732$ snipped-for-privacy@news.usenetserver.com:

What's the point in keeping them? When was the last time you saw a new computer with a diskette drive?

Depending on what's stored on them, though, you might want to either securely erase them, or physically destroy them, instead of just putting them in the trash -- any sort of financial data, medical records, other personal information, plans for building nuclear warheads, etc.

The last time I even had a floppy drive, it usually refused to read whatever old floppy disk I gave it. Your experience may be better than mine.

mputer with a diskette

rely erase them, or

sort of financial data, medical

I agree. Some time ago I had a bunch of floppies, and several zip drive discs (remember those?) After retrieving any needed data from them, I physically destroyed them. As I rcall, I simply cut up the floppies with tin snips, and drilled holes in all the zip drive discs. Then I threw out the debris. JimCo

Too bad they're not B drive floppies...those are worth some money.

i tried that a few months ago with some that were about 8 or 10 years old. Only would read about 5%. You'd better try soon if you think there's something on them you want.

Hmmmm....how much space to store future treasures? Some day, someone will find some old floppies and need a floppy drive. I copied my genealogy data for the family onto a CD and put a copy into the ancient (1900) family album...by the time anyone finds the album and takes an interest in the CD, the CD will likely be several generations too old to read on whatever the current equipment is. Anyone priced copying old

My iozip died - "hiss of death" mangled the disks.

Makes me distrust any media.

I got a lot of PCSIG 5.25" floppies in the basement. My first DOS machine was MS-DOS-Generic (no bit map) so I couldn't trust software. Ironically MicroSoft (before IBM body snatched them during the OS2 deal and turned them into FUD promoters) once promised all their stuff was MSDOS Generic and I had bought MultiPlan which ran well.

- = - Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist

Put 'em on Ebay. Who knows what might develop?

If you find someone to buy them, let me know. We have several thousand.

I'm guessing it's already too late. IIRC, you could get read errors just looking at a floppy the wrong way, even if it was written the day before. Add years worth ot time and cosmic radiation exposure and your 5% rate could even be considered "good." (-:

-- Bobby G.

I have also had problems reading old disks. You also need to try at least a couple different drives. I got tons of disks but luckily little or no usefull stuff. they make USB units, but try to find the old large ones!!!!

Greg

Don't count on floppies to last forever. If they are more than about 10 years old they are no longer reliable. If you really want to keep the data on them better copy it all onto a hard drive or flash drive now. Even if every floppy is completely full, it's only about 300 MB, not much space on today's storage devices.

I'll admit, my current computer doesn't have an A-drive. I have one I bought at a clearance, and could wire that in. Or, something else. But like you say, not much sense keeping them.

For sure, I wouldn't want someone reading my data, I do have access to a burn barrel.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

What's the point in keeping them? When was the last time you saw a new computer with a diskette drive?

Depending on what's stored on them, though, you might want to either securely erase them, or physically destroy them, instead of just putting them in the trash -- any sort of financial data, medical records, other personal information, plans for building nuclear warheads, etc.

I'm sure you're right, the data is probably decomposing.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

i tried that a few months ago with some that were about 8 or 10 years old. Only would read about 5%. You'd better try soon if you think there's something on them you want.

I think, when I got my last computer, I copied all the floppies to drive, and then burned them to CD. Most likely, I already have all the data, copied off. For sure, it sounds more like wasted space.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

Hmmmm....how much space to store future treasures? Some day, someone will find some old floppies and need a floppy drive. I copied my genealogy data for the family onto a CD and put a copy into the ancient (1900) family album...by the time anyone finds the album and takes an interest in the CD, the CD will likely be several generations too old to read on whatever the current equipment is. Anyone priced copying old

Oh, I threw those out last week. Along with the old German language Bible. A "guten something" version. It wasn't worth anything, some guy named Martin Luther had scribbled in all the margins.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

Giggle. X, Y, and Z drive floppies are even more rare!

So, give me a hint. You are how old? Bang your cane on the floor when I get close. Ninety?

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

Makes me distrust any media.

I got a lot of PCSIG 5.25" floppies in the basement. My first DOS machine was MS-DOS-Generic (no bit map) so I couldn't trust software. Ironically MicroSoft (before IBM body snatched them during the OS2 deal and turned them into FUD promoters) once promised all their stuff was MSDOS Generic and I had bought MultiPlan which ran well.

- = - Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist

Yes, I could copy that all to my (old computer's) hard drive. Burn it all onto one CD, and pitch the lot of floppies into the burn barrel.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

Don't count on floppies to last forever. If they are more than about 10 years old they are no longer reliable. If you really want to keep the data on them better copy it all onto a hard drive or flash drive now. Even if every floppy is completely full, it's only about 300 MB, not much space on today's storage devices.

Maybe 6 months ago, a neighbor desperately tried to recover data from (what looked to me like) maybe 6 or 7 hundred old 3.5" floppies.

Even after buying, borrowing and or otherwise acquiring numerous drives, she claims to have only have recovered a low single digit percentage of her data.

But (and you didn't hear it from me), those floppies weren't stored well at all... just huge loose dusty piles on a table in a house reeking of cigarette smoke; parts of the heap had received over a decade of direct Sunlight as well.

Erik

Poor storage can't help, but I've seen low recovery rates like that from floppies stored under pretty good conditions. Although I'm certainly not a recording engineer, from what I've read the thin plastic magnetic film just wasn't designed for archival storage.

I can remember getting boxes of IBM and other "name brand" disks early on that wouldn't format out to full capacity. I used to mark them -5K or whatever in the corner of the disk to let me know they wouldn't "diskcopy" reliably. Guess what the recovery rate for those disks is? Big fat zero. They weren't any good when they were new and they didn't age into a better state. (-:

My Win 3.1 install disks all went bad except for one, and they were stored in a dark closet in the original box. Ah, for the manly days of DOS when you *had* to know the magic words to get anything out of the C: prompt.

-- Bobby G.