Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Amiga4k on February 01, 2006, 01:57:08 AM
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How many of you still use floppy disks? How many use the older 880k Amiga DSDD disks?
The reason I asked it that I posted an item in the classified section, and had over 40 reads on the subject. With that many reads, I would have thought there would be some interest.
Am I missing something in the "reads"?
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Really the only reason why I would use DD disks would be to use in my Apple IIGS. I guess for other reasons if I'm using them in the Amiga. That's why I'm so glad I can use High Density disks.
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I still use 880k floppies with my miggies. I use them for rarely played games, or system disks. I also don't have my 1200 networked, so they get used for the odd transfer as well. I sometimes read ebay adds out of curiosity, with no intention to buy. Also, if the specifics of the product/sale do not match my requirements, the add will have been read with no bid. If it's an online auction you're talking about, then there may also be people waiting before bidding.
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I still use floppies too - for a few older games and demos that won't install to HD, or for use on my A1000 when I sometimes boot that up.
I also make use of them for small file transfers - it helps that my PC has a Catweasel in it, so it's easy to use DD disks as a transfer mechanism.
Anything of any importance is already backed up on to CD or DVD though for archiving purposes.
- Ali
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I use them for my Amiga and Atari ST series of computers all the time!
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Every single one of my Amiga games in on DD floppies. I even bought a pack of 50 brand new dd floppies the other day. The reason I don't use HD is because I don't have an HD floppy drive so it's more reliable to use proper 880k DDs.
I also still use HD floppies in my PC. They are great for transfering small files. I don't know why most people seem against using them. I have Loads of ICT coursework, and a few bits of electronics coursework, as word and publisher files, and there's still plenty of room left.
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i have about 1500 dd and hd disks of amiga stuff, so i don't see a reason not to use them if there's a need for this. in dayly use, i use floppys for transfer small files updates from aminet as my amigas are not networked yet, a problem i hope to solve in the near future. for games i prefer to use the fmsdisk.device solution mounting dd disks from hardfiles, that's all :-)
by the way, is the hd floppy drive of the a3000 working in the a1200? does anyone here tryed this?
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My apologies to all I did not mention this sale was NOT on Ebay, as I do value my reputation. I have heard the horror stories about faluty Amiga goods on Ebay. Not whitewashing the whole system, but I have sold literally $1000's in Amiga and CBM gear over the past decade, and I have only used E-bay once. That item did not sell. Will probably part out the A4000 Toaster (new software) and the DKB3128 (128 meg loaded) after I get moved to FL.
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I still use them.
In fact I bought some last year form ebay.
They were new and sealed, £8.99 for 50, I think.
Although I am begining to use HD floppys more now, as I have an Amiga 4000/40.
:-D
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Well the whole eBay scene was good, but too many people got greedy. Sometimes greed makes people do stupid stuff and it ruins it for everyone. I'm surprised that eBay hasn't shutdown the Computer section all together.
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justthatgood wrote:
I'm surprised that eBay hasn't shutdown the Computer section all together.
Why would they do that? That's probably where they make most of their money.
--
moto
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Someone mentioned on another thread that WinXP won't allow you to format a Double Density/720k and since they only sell High Density in shops I'm wondering if re-using the 20yr old stuff is safe.
Don't the magnetic surfaces degrade?
I kinda like the vanilla Amiga branded Maxell disks that came in the A1200 packs.
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yes that's truth i wrote it once too, and i discover day by day that the old dd disks falling apart.. but the new hd floppys of today they are not good and dropping down dead quickly too...
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Yeah I know Windows XP is terrible when it comes to 720K disks, that's why you have to use something like Linux or OpenDOS... Yeah the the bit rot will get you all the time. It's even worse with the 5 1/4 disk. I've had to throw out a lot of Apple II and Atari disk for my 1050 drive.
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Hi,
This comes up a lot - Windows XP will allow you to format a 720Kb disk, just not from the formatting GUI.
To do it, open a command prompt (a.k.a DOS prompt) and type the following:
format a: /t:80 /n:9
Another XP-based program that might be of interest regarding all sorts of floppy formats is OmniFlop (http://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniFlop/OmniFlop.htm), which will allow your PC's disk controller to read/write a multitude of disks (including Atari ST, various CP/Ms, Sinclair, Acorn/BBC, etc). It won't read/write Amiga disks due to PC disk controller hardware (you'll need a Catweasel for that) but it's still very useful and it's free.
- Ali
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I still use original floppies that came with an a1000. Some of them are from as far back as '86 and they still work just fine. It is strange that the vast majority of floppies i have from 15-20 years ago still work just fine. I am constantly chucking new floppies in the trash.
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discover day by day that the old dd disks falling apart.. but the new hd floppys of today they are not good and dropping down dead quickly too...
This I've never understood. It's extremely rare for me that my floppies break down. I got floppies closer to being 15 years old that still works like a charm. I've never bothered about taking "good care" of them, having had them lying on the TV-set , on my speakers and pretty much everywhere where they shouldn't be (that is, when they have been outside the floppy-storage-box or whatever you call it in english).
I recently cleaned out my collection of floppies. Formating each one of those that I had no use of any longer, just to check their integrity. About 100 DD floppies, and 80 HD ones, that I had used with my various Amigas through the years.
I would guess that something like 10 of those 100 DD floppies were broken... and of those 10 that were broken most of them had once been forgotten outside in a car, over night, in freezing winter (of course also some old A500 floppies had checksum errors on some of the files, but back then it seemed enough to write to a floppy once to get it 'not validated', but the floppies themselves weren't broken).
Out of the 80 HD floppies that I had used with my Amiga maybe 2 or 3 where broken (I formated the HD floppies in my PC since I don't have a HD drive in my Amiga).
But then came the funny part. I also formated like 20 HD floppies that I had used with my various PC's during the years. I would say that well over half of them were broken.
The floppies I've kept without formating them, I've not kept because of their content, but because of their, to me, nostalgic worth. Looking at some of those old A500 floppies and their ugly, by me, written labels makes me smile. I just can't toss them away (or format them, removing the labels and putting them in my "ready to use" pile, like I did with the other disks).
To sum it all up, I am generally not using floppies much. I use them Sometimes when I find no other way than writing something to floppies to get it working, or quickly transfering something to a non-networked computer.
I once thought that ZIP-Drives were nice, 'cause I had one and they had some at my school aswell. Unfortunately most of the time the ZIP-floppies I took to school couldn't be read there and when I took them home again I realised that the files on them had become broken. Same thing happened when I tried transfering files between me and my friends (and my friends with ZIP-drives generally had much trouble with them aswell). So I got rid of my ZIP-drive. Never looked back.
Pretty silly of me to consider the 5.25" drive, I've installed in my PC a while back, the coolest thing my PC has to offer. Just for the fun of it I sometimes put some important documents on my 5.25" disks, and later accessing those files when friends are visiting, just to see the looks on their faces. But then, again, I've never been sane. Honestly.
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Hmm, last time I installed Workbench 3.1, I found several system disks had died. Damn. I had spares, but I really should back them up. Problem is getting reliable media to do it with.
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Maybe it's a good idea to get one of those floppy drive cleaning diskettes with the fabric thing inside. You put a few drops of the supplied fluid on the exposed bit and use a program such as the hilariously named Scrubber:
ftp://de.aminet.net/pub/aminet/disk/misc/scrubber13.lha
This will move the drive head over the fabric disk to give it a good clean.
They say that deposits can build up over time on the drive head, especially if you smoke (this was a problem with Playstation laser lenses).
I'm just wondering though if floppies with read/write errors can be 'cured' with a Full Format. Does this re-align the magnetic particles?
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This I've never understood. It's extremely rare for me that my floppies break down. I got floppies closer to being 15 years old that still works like a charm.
I have to agree and the ones I got from ebay were brand new and they work fine, I have used most of them now and they have been in use for about the last six months.
I have tried refomating "dead" floppys, this sometimes works, but in the main it does not.
:-)
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steve30 wrote:
Every single one of my Amiga games in on DD floppies. I even bought a pack of 50 brand new dd floppies the other day. The reason I don't use HD is because I don't have an HD floppy drive so it's more reliable to use proper 880k DDs.
I also still use HD floppies in my PC. They are great for transfering small files. I don't know why most people seem against using them. I have Loads of ICT coursework, and a few bits of electronics coursework, as word and publisher files, and there's still plenty of room left.
Hmmm, the last two boxes of HD disks I bought had a 50% failure rate, perhaps thats why???? There is simply no quality in modern floppy disks. However, just about all my original Amiga DD floppys are still working and I am yet to find a single defective 5 1/4" C64 disk amongst my collection.
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one thing that happened a long time ago was the flppy drives getting out of alignment. In this proces, all your ner disks formatted over worked fine, but your older disks didnt work. this is why back in the day i had to switch to pc, nobody in the area could fix the floppy discs in wilmington NC, and the cost to get the shipped or newer ones ordered was too high, than this was in '94. Major bummer.
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I remember seeing floopy drive head alignment discs. Not sure how well they worked. Maybe it was just a case of snake oil. Anybody tried these?
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I'm just wondering though if floppies with read/write errors can be 'cured' with a Full Format. Does this re-align the magnetic particles?
Depends on why you have gotten those read/write errors. If it is a big chunk of tar that you have managed to get inside the floppy, I suspect no one in the world could get it working again. =)
I do things in steps... when I've discovered a read/write error the first thing I do is to manually open the dustcover on the floppy... then I rotate the "disk" while blowing on the exposed parts, on both sides. Then I try reading the disk again, and quite often that helps (it might just be some dust that have reached the disk). If someone says that it is stupid to do this, well, then I can only say that I have never managed to make a disk more "broken" than it was before I blew on it. =)
If that doesn't help, then I try to format the floppy, which in most of the times works, but every now and then some floppy starts to sound "schreeeeeeeewd, schreeeeeeewd". If so, I just try to format it a couple of times, and, just like in most previous cases, after a couple of tries it works just fine again. To ensure this I've tried reading and writing files (not just once, but many times with each particular floppy) to some selected floppies that I've formated this way, and they haven't shown any signs of becoming "broken" again.
Note: I seldom use floppies and thus I seldom do what I've described above. The only reason that I've developed this method above is because I was pretty into trying what could, and couldn't, be done when I was younger. If someone said a floppy would become broken if lying on the TV-set, well, then I had to put it on the TV-set to see if this was true. If someone said it wasn't good to try to "blow" away dust that had reached the disk, then I had to try it. And so on. Etc. Etc. Etc.