Recovering Floppy Disks (Not the data)

[Phipli]

I bought some NOS DD floppy disks a couple of years back and almost all of them have bad sectors.

I was just wondering if there is any way to... Rejuvenate them? There is no data on them, I'm just wondering if there is any software that is able to do anything like format the bad sectors repeatedly until they take the hunt or anything. 800k disks aren't cheap any more and a lot have bad sectors. It would be nice to be able to bring some back into use.

To be clear, I don't really care if they're likely to go bad again. I hardly ever use floppy disks, but it would be nice to get some use out of these ones.

 

[halkyardo]

I have the same situation with an 100-pack of HD disks that I was given a few years ago. It was still in its shrink-wrap, but nearly every single disk was unusable, with mildewy-looking deposits on the disk surface. I haven't given much thought to trying to save them, but I do wonder if cleaning the disk surface with alcohol could help. Might have to give that a go.

 

[Phipli]

I have the same situation with an 100-pack of HD disks that I was given a few years ago. It was still in its shrink-wrap, but nearly every single disk was unusable, with mildewy-looking deposits on the disk surface. I haven't given much thought to trying to save them, but I do wonder if cleaning the disk surface with alcohol could help. Might have to give that a go.

Outch, I hope you weren't too out of pocket.

Frustratingly I have enough of 1.44MB disks and 5.25" disks, it's just 800k disks that I'm short of.

I've bought some pot luck ones off eBay, hopefully some are OK, but I can't really justify the cost of them these days.

Weird use case, nothing else will do because I want them to test that I've successfully archived flux images of disks by writing them back to a disk and testing them.

 

[halkyardo]

Thankfully it was a case of "I'm throwing these out, do you want them?" but it was absolutely incredible how quickly those bad disks would clog drive heads - just one failed attempt at formatting would clog the heads so severely that the drive would subsequent have trouble reading known-good disks.

I think I own a grand total of two 'real' 800K disks. Really ought to buy a couple of boxes of em while they're still available - I kind of want to distribute real physical driver disks with my ethernet cards to aid in bootstrapping new systems, but since my card will work in SEs, that means 800K disks to support non-FDHD models (which are the most challenging ones to bootstrap anyway).

 

[Snial]

I found this on VOGONS:

"Nothing will fix actually damaged surface (unless it's just dirt that needs cleaning) but often the issue with old floppies is weak magnetic fields so sector headers are difficult to find/read. Fresh format (actual format, not quick read-only verification) will fix that."

Floppy Disks and Bad Sectors \ VOGONS

www.vogons.org

So, I guess if the problem mostly is weakened magnetic fields then a fresh-format utility (and on an 800K disk this means variable speed, so perhaps an MSDOS 720K formatter wouldn't be so good), would be ideal.

I also have a number of DD 9cm* floppy disks that have been dying, mostly Mac, but some QL. When I was having difficulty getting my Mac Plus to boot properly from a Zip disk I managed to squeeze a minimal System 6+Zip guest (or Extension) onto a DD with some duff sectors. More recently I found a whole box of 10 unused 1.44MB Floppy disks at my dad's house, most of which worked OK on my LC II.

Thankfully it was a case of "I'm throwing these out, do you want them?" but it was absolutely incredible how quickly those bad disks would clog drive heads - just one failed attempt at formatting would clog the heads so severely that the drive would subsequent have trouble reading known-good disks.

Maybe also there needs to be a suitable testing procedure: check disk surface, clean disk surface if it can be, fresh format before using one.

[*what we normally call 3.5", though in fact they have a metric spec at 1.1mm bigger, i.e. 9cm].

 

[Phipli]

I found this on VOGONS:

"Nothing will fix actually damaged surface (unless it's just dirt that needs cleaning) but often the issue with old floppies is weak magnetic fields so sector headers are difficult to find/read. Fresh format (actual format, not quick read-only verification) will fix that."

Floppy Disks and Bad Sectors \ VOGONS

www.vogons.org

So, I guess if the problem mostly is weakened magnetic fields then a fresh-format utility (and on an 800K disk this means variable speed, so perhaps an MSDOS 720K formatter wouldn't be so good), would be ideal.

I also have a number of DD 9cm* floppy disks that have been dying, mostly Mac, but some QL. When I was having difficulty getting my Mac Plus to boot properly from a Zip disk I managed to squeeze a minimal System 6+Zip guest (or Extension) onto a DD with some duff sectors. More recently I found a whole box of 10 unused 1.44MB Floppy disks at my dad's house, most of which worked OK on my LC II.


Maybe also there needs to be a suitable testing procedure: check disk surface, clean disk surface if it can be, fresh format before using one.

[*what we normally call 3.5", though in fact they have a metric spec at 1.1mm bigger, i.e. 9cm].

I haven't even got to these yet...

 

[Snial]

I know what you mean ;-) !

 

[Daniël]

Hitting them with a bulk eraser can work wonders. I've gotten disks back from the brink that had no physical damage, but needed a good magnetic scramble to even things out and get rid of stubborn sectors. A bad quality disk however, will always be bad quality, this is mainly just with good quality media.

 

[RedJacketPress]

I haven't even got to these yet...

View attachment 70972

I used to use these with my Amstrad PCW! That brings back such fond memories...

 

[danny.gonzalez.0861@gmai]

I have had success ordering the recycled disks in both 1.44 and 720k from https://www.floppydisk.com/.

They are 100% guaranteed to work and I have not found one with an issue.

For the price, I don't think you can beat them. Shipping was fast they are quick to respond to inquiries.

 

[olePigeon]

I've also successfully recovered unformattable disks using a Bulk Tape Eraser.

 

[Phipli]

I've also successfully recovered unformattable disks using a Bulk Tape Eraser.

Interesting - are they just a strong magnet in a frame, or is there something more cunning going on?

 

[olePigeon]

@Phipli I don't know. I'm guessing it's just an electromagnet that you plug into a wall. It also overheats in about 1 minute, and you have to wait 20-30 minutes before using it again. You can probably erase 2 or 3 disks at a time, doing maybe 6 to 9 disks before you have to take a break to let it cool down ... or get a fancier, expensive one that doesn't require that. But how often are you going to use it?