Floppy Disks: Testing, Recovering, Reusing and Recycling

[djukon]

Originally Posted by prowler

I use a wire hairgrip, suitably bent, with a wooden dowel forming a t-bar handle.

Fancy.

Originally Posted by prowler

Oh, and btw, the metal hub on 3½-inch disks is stainless steel - not aluminium.

Thanks for picking that up, prowler. Long lasting steel, what's not to like about that. Home made Delorean, here I come!

[djukon]

Originally Posted by prowler

IMHO, it is not worth testing a batch of hundreds of floppy disks for errors just in case you might have a use for them at some future time. By then, they may have deteriorated further.

It is far better to store them indoors in dry conditions until you need to use them for storing data.

Picking back up on this strategy, I do have something to add after all this discussion.

If you keep floppy disks untested for more than a decade, they may end up passing more mould to other neighboring floppies. So pruning them could be another strategy to take. As a bonus you free up some storage space.

This reminds me, if you don't have enough plastic floppy sleeves for all your floppies, you can always spread them out, serving as physical barriers for the spores not to spread so directly.

BTW, are plastic sleeves something to avoid (in a dry environment)?

[prowler]

Originally Posted by djukon

Picking back up on this strategy, I do have something to add after all this discussion.

If you keep floppy disks untested for more than a decade, they may end up passing more mould to other neighboring floppies. So pruning them could be another strategy to take. As a bonus you free up some storage space.

Yes indeed, and now that you've revealed your shortcut for detecting said mould, everyone will surely be pruning their floppy collections to eradicate it and free up some space even as we speak.

Originally Posted by djukon

This reminds me, if you don't have enough plastic floppy sleeves for all your floppies, you can always spread them out, serving as physical barriers for the spores not to spread so directly.

No, surely it's best to eliminate the mould altogether, if you can, and then store the remaining disks in a dry environment, which should stop it developing further.

Originally Posted by djukon

BTW, are plastic sleeves something to avoid (in a dry environment)?

I don't think they should be avoided if you have them. However, personal computing magazines recommended, back in the halcyon days of floppy disks, that they be stored vertically in boxes in a dry environment.

[djukon]

Originally Posted by prowler

Yes indeed, and now that you've revealed your shortcut for detecting said mould, everyone will surely be pruning their floppy collections to eradicate it and free up some space even as we speak.

You make it sound like history would remember this as the djukon maneuver .
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Originally Posted by prowler

No, surely it's best to eliminate the mould altogether, if you can, and then store the remaining disks in a dry environment, which should stop it developing further.

I was considering using this strategy for the remaining good disks, after the pruning is done, as an additional preventative measure. Besides, if mould starts to grow on the transparent plastic sleeves, you have a very clear view of the spreading infection.

Originally Posted by prowler

I don't think they should be avoided if you have them. However, personal computing magazines recommended, back in the halcyon days of floppy disks, that they be stored vertically in boxes in a dry environment.

That's how I have mine. Vertical, in boxes, dry AND about one third in plastic sleeves.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by djukon

You make it sound like history would remember this as the djukon maneuver .
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Well, yes, that does have a certain ring to it.

And how about 'the demolition manoeuvre' (British spelling!) for the flat-bladed screwdriver insertion.

Originally Posted by djukon

I was considering using this strategy for the remaining good disks, after the pruning is done, as an additional preventative measure. Besides, if mould starts to grow on the transparent plastic sleeves, you have a very clear view of the spreading infection.

That's how I have mine. Vertical, in boxes, dry AND about one third in plastic sleeves.

You can't go far wrong with that!

[djukon]

Originally Posted by prowler

And how about 'the demolition manoeuvre' (British spelling!) for the flat-bladed screwdriver insertion.

Now that is epic . If we want to snob it out, we can call it the djukon-demolition procedure and be done with it . (MD reference) And also not have to worry about the spelling!

Anyway, this left me wondering, is there any wiki or special purpose portal that documents computer and electronics maintenance procedures (repairs and long term preventative maintenance)?

Update: There's RepairWorld, but it requires an $8.33 a month subscription.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by djukon

Anyway, this left me wondering, is there any wiki or special purpose portal that documents computer and electronics maintenance procedures (repairs and long term preventative maintenance)?

Not that I am aware of, but that sounds like a good support.Hardware forum new thread topic.

Originally Posted by djukon

Update: There's RepairWorld, but it requires an $8.33 a month subscription.

and that makes it sound like an even better new thread topic.

[orange]

I use diskettes for saving some small config files, as backup.

[djukon]

Originally Posted by prowler

Not that I am aware of, but that sounds like a good support.Hardware forum new thread topic.

Done: Computer/Electronics Maintenance Portal thread

Originally Posted by orange

I use diskettes for saving some small config files, as backup.

Thanks for the input, orange. I was wondering, do you do it only for Amiga, or for other platforms as well?

[demolition]

Originally Posted by prowler

And how about 'the demolition manoeuvre' (British spelling!) for the flat-bladed screwdriver insertion.

I think that name might mislead someone in to thinking they have to poke the screwdriver straight through the disk.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by demolition

I think that name might mislead someone in to thinking they have to poke the screwdriver straight through the disk.

Actually, that's exactly what they have to do. Fortunately, there's no magnetic material in the centre.

Surely you don't imagine anyone here would think they have to poke it through the enclosure as well?

[Amiga1992]

I don't use any tool to spin the disk, I just use my thumb on the hole and then my index on the side of the disc and rotate. It works and you don't need any tools.

https://vine.co/v/hpVg1HHPbHz <- Demonstration

[djukon]

Originally Posted by prowler

Surely you don't imagine anyone here would think they have to poke it through the enclosure as well?

Here, I think not. However, demolition does have a point which I seriously consider: do not overestimate lusers.

If someone does poke the screwdriver through the enclosure, at least it shouldn't take away the ability to read the floppy. Unless a little piece of plastic or other external debris falls into the magnetic disc chamber.

As it would only harm one floppy, it probably would be the last mistake they made with the demolition manoeuver.

[djukon]

Originally Posted by Akira

I don't use any tool to spin the disk, I just use my thumb on the hole and then my index on the side of the disc and rotate. It works and you don't need any tools.

https://vine.co/v/hpVg1HHPbHz <- Demonstration

Now do that while holding the shutter door open with the other hand, pointing to a light source directed to your eyes, without the disk being constantly swayed by the rotating motion, and also with a fine tuned motion (i.e. no jerkiness).

[Amiga1992]

HAhaI just rotate it one bit, look through the shutter, rotate another bit, look through the shutter, etc. Or I could temporarily remove the shutter.
Then again, as I don't bother with floppy disks, I don't put much thought into this

[demolition]

One could also use a bent paperclip to lodge in to keep the shutter open.

[djukon]

Originally Posted by Akira

Then again, as I don't bother with floppy disks, I don't put much thought into this

It does have its meta-merit. If the combined tips in this discussion are aggregated, the thumb technique could be referred as a fallback option if you don't have a fitting flat head screwdriver with you at the time of inspection.

Originally Posted by demolition

One could also use a bent paperclip to lodge in to keep the shutter open.

Good one .

[djukon]

I "discovered" a recurring activity to re-use floppies frequently.

Just like some people still use vinyl as a music listening ritual experience, I'm now using old floppies for MIDI/MOD/SID "albums", as an excuse to keep using them (and older sound hardware). This way I can keep an eye (literally) on the floppies and keep testing/cleaning the drives. Any floppies beyond recovery are recycled.

Current planned usage is by using one to three floppies each day (I only have 3.5" ones). Every week I smell and look at the surface of every floppy that will be used after vacuuming the room (and leaving the Rainbow cleaner on to absorb the dust particles in the air).

Regarding the light focus/screwdriver test, the translucency only works well with HD floppies. DD floppies are much less translucent and I find that any surface anomalies can be more easily detected by reflection of the light (shining off close to the light source, instead of passing through).

I still have some questions that have come up:

• How do you mark bad sectors on a floppy to avoid using those sectors (PC and Amiga)?
• If you find a floppy with a few failing sectors, should you keep using them even if the rest is good, or throw them out? (eventually all industrial era fabricated floppies will come to this stage :: post-industrial locally sourced replicas don't count)
• What are the substract substances on the floppy data surfaces (beneath Iron and Cobalt)? Plastic? (I'm considering composting if it is organically degradable when shredded)
• What other mechanical (rub) protective layers do floppies have besides Teflon?
• For floppies to be fully tested on their surface, should you use the 880KiB Amiga format, or is the PC's 720KiB format enough? (The equivalent for 1.44/1.76MB?) Are there more extensive formats/tests to be done on the whole surface? Which tools? (the tests I'm doing are currently with file hash verfications: MD5/SHA1 with fciv).
• How frequently should floppy disks be spun up for maintenance checks? (yearly?) What is the ideal balance between rub vs stagnation rot?
• How frequently should a floppy disk drive be cleaned when using one to three floppies a day? (full reads, occasional writes [5%])
• What easily renewable/accessible tools can we use to clean the drive heads? Clean fabric from old floppy's envelopes? (Specialized cleaning floppies are no longer fabricated)
• When floppy drives are no longer easily accessible (possibly in a decade or so), how can the floppy drive heads be properly aligned? I've read it is expensive. Are the machines that do this coming down in price (as they are obsolete)? What are they called (keywords) and how big are they? Something you can store in a garage?
• I should throw out all paper/cardboard floppy boxes, right? (I guess they more easily breed fungi) Just keep the plastic ones (which can be thoroughly cleaned).

[djukon]

Just a quick mention of London-based artist Nick Gentry, who arranges floppy disks as his canvas. He accepts floppy donations and he gives an address you can send unwanted floppies to.

I sent him a question recently and he said that currently he still has plenty of floppy disks in the studio, though he wouldn't mind having more if one could spare them [paraphrasing].

[prowler]

Originally Posted by djukon

• How do you mark bad sectors on a floppy to avoid using those sectors (PC and Amiga)?

Hi djukon, thanks for bumping the thread. I had forgotten where I had seen that question.

I used a pair of MS-DOS command line utilities for setting and clearing bad sector markings on floppy disks in days gone by.

I'll see if I can find them again if you're interested in trying them out.