Re: cannot format floppy

From: jpd (read_the_sig_at_do.not.spam.it)
Date: 11/17/03 

Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 10:36:18 +0000 (UTC)

In article <HoCtA7.17wp@wjv.com>, Bill Vermillion wrote:
>
> There are times when you do need floppies. I never trust them
> new.

True. Unfortunately.

[snip: format a floppy and make sure it works]
>
> But - 2 or 3 years ago I grabbed all the 3.5" disks from about 1988
> thru 1993 and spun them off to CD. I had one file on one disk that
> was not readable. I attribute that to my own QC beofre using them.

It's amazing how some (even new!) floppies just crumble under your
fingers, datawise. In that light it's equaly amazing that after N years
some floppies still work. I do have floppies that old that still work,
but admittedly not nearly as many as you have. And weird-ass cpbackup
format on top of that. That program was quite impressive in what it
could do with floppies, and how fast it was. It was just that it dealt
with *floppies*. *sigh*

> I've been working with magnetic media all of my life [so far]
> and am comfortable with it as I've learned all it's foibles.
> Putting in 70+ hours/week for several years in a recording studio
> environment you see almost everything that can be done wrong - and
> it tranlates to all media in all enviroments.

All magnetic media at least. I am very tempted to call you a cheater
at this point, but then again, 70+ h/w isn't what I call cheating. :-)

> I got so I could tell the brand and model number of the tape I was
> using just by the smell.

Like when you can tell *which* disk out of N very loud old disks in the
room is about to give up the magic smoke. And no, it wasn't the one
closest to me. 

-- 
  j p d (at) d s b (dot) t u d e l f t (dot) n l .