NOS 2S/2D Disks Won't Format

[Phipli]

Is there any reason why I shouldn't be surprised and every single one of a pack of 10 New Old Stock floppy disks wont format in my SE? Drive is good, formats some other disks fine, but this pack, bought still plastic wrapped, will not take a format?!

I tried my external as well (love those drive icons with their arrows - dismantled my SE to move the floppy cable to the correct port the other day).

 

[Phipli]

Weird - its like they're 400k disks, I can format them fine as single sided.

 

[compu_85]

Perhaps the upper head is dirty?

It's also very possible the new disks have gone bad...

Can you format them in a PC?

-J

 

[Phipli]

Perhaps the upper head is dirty?

It's also very possible the new disks have gone bad...

Can you format them in a PC?

-J

Both drives are fine with other disks and I stripped and cleaned / greased them both this month. I don't think I have a PC that I could set up without a fair amount of part swapping, I don't use them. Only ones vaguely set up is a freedos machine for flashing PCI cards and that doesn't have a floppy drive and my linux machine thar doesn't support floppy drives. How much difference would using a PC make? Is there something important that they do differently?

 

[compu_85]

No, it was just something to try as a test.

 

[Unknown_K]

I can see the coating flake off if they were stored in an uncooled unheated garage in Arizona (for example) for 20 years.

 

[Phipli]

I can see the coating flake off if they were stored in an uncooled unheated garage in Arizona (for example) for 20 years.

Yeah, I thought that so I checked - surface looks fine, no radial marks, mottling or inconsistency.