skyvingt@ilog.UUCP (William Skyvington) (12/20/90)
The rate at which my floppies have been dying over the last year, since I've been working on several IIcx machines, is outrageous. I've been using floppies intensively to take work back and forth between my office and home machines, and to back up personal stuff (such as the 500-page typescript of my latest novel, and musical compositions from Performer and Finale). I was happy to have floppy backup when the internal hard disk of my IIcx crashed about a month after I bought it. Over the last year, I've encountered the scandalous "This disk is unreadable" message at least a couple of dozen times. A kind of Murphy's Law of Death means that it's inevitably the most important current floppy that gives up the ghost. Sometimes a floppy is alive and well when I read from it on a Friday night. Then, when I take it out on Monday morning, to rewrite on it the efforts of the weekend, it is stone cold dead. At work, A/UX allows me to keep all my major documents stored safely in a huge Unix system that is protected against anything short of an invasion from outer space. So, I've never actually lost anything, even in the most morbid predicaments. But the situation is scary. Frankly, I've reached the point at which I've lost all confidence in Macintosh floppies. I've often wondered if there might be some kind of morgue capable of carrying out autopsies on my collection of corpses, to tell me what actually killed them. Meanwhile, I guess I should start shopping around for some kind of removable hard disk device for backup and for taking stuff between the office and home. Is there an ABSOLUTELY IDEAL machine for this purpose? William Skyvington skyvingt@ilog.fr
derek@leah.albany.edu (Cinderella Man) (12/22/90)
In article <10547@ilog.UUCP> skyvingt@ilog.UUCP (William Skyvington) writes: >The rate at which my floppies have been dying over the last year, >since I've been working on several IIcx machines, is outrageous. I too have been encountering FAR more unreadable floppies over the past year or so, both 800K and 1.4MB. I can state this objectively because I'm the person Mac users campuswide come to with their problems, and the number of trashed disks has been increasing slowly but steadily. This is machine-independent: SE, IIcx, IIci, IIfx, all are about equal. >Frankly, I've reached the point at which I've lost all confidence in >Macintosh floppies. Ditto here. I bring graphic work and documentation between home and work all the time, and I now make two copies of everything I transport, because the likelihood of a trashed disk is high enough. I've had a Mac since September 1984, and I _used_ to be able to count on a disk for two, even three years -- my old disks, just sitting at home, are still good. This is NOT to say that I can't recover disks or files. I have an 85% success rate with SUM and/or MacTools Deluxe's Rescue (and I really want to order a copy of 1st Aid), so the problems are usually not unresolvable. Still, it's the frequency of the problem that gets to me. By the way, my working hypothesis is that it's the library door scanners producing a large enough field to scramble data. It's the most common point we all walk through. And I keep my disks free of dust, so it's not simple media scratches. >William Skyvington Derek L. -- wishing I used WORM CDs for data transport...
lalor@cod.NOSC.MIL (Joe Lalor) (12/22/90)
From article <1990Dec21.161038.11141@sarah.albany.edu>, by derek@leah.albany.edu (Cinderella Man): > In article <10547@ilog.UUCP> skyvingt@ilog.UUCP (William Skyvington) writes: >>The rate at which my floppies have been dying over the last year, >>since I've been working on several IIcx machines, is outrageous. > > I too have been encountering FAR more unreadable floppies over > the past year or so, both 800K and 1.4MB. I can state this objectively > because I'm the person Mac users campuswide come to with their problems, > and the number of trashed disks has been increasing slowly but steadily. > This is machine-independent: SE, IIcx, IIci, IIfx, all are about equal. An Apple employee two months back told me that Apple has formally asked Sony to examine their drives for possible fixes or an out and out recall of the drives. Apparently, there are enough complaints that Apple has gone back to what they believe is the source-Sony who makes the drives. JOE LALOR lalor@nosc.mil
doner@aero.aero.org (John Doner) (12/22/90)
In article <10547@ilog.UUCP>, skyvingt@ilog.UUCP (William Skyvington) writes: |> The rate at which my floppies have been dying over the last year, |> since I've been working on several IIcx machines, is outrageous. I also often get floppy problems, although I can't say I've noticed an increase over the last year. Happlily, I find that the mere act of copying a disk with CopyToMac usually resuscitates it, or at least enables me to recover files I need. When it comes up with disk error indications, I imagine this is due to flaws in the media, leading to weak or nonexistent magnetic recording. At any rate, trying to read the disk sector by sector with FEdit will show specific sectors that can't be read. Sometimes an address mark will be invalid, costing it a whole track. Now I wonder: hard disk formatting includes identifying bad or untrustworthy sectors so these get excluded from the volume map. Isn't it possible to do the same thing with floppies? Is there a program out there that will identify bad sectors and then render them inaccessible, perhaps by putting small fake files over these areas of the disk, or tinkering with the volume map. BTW, many disks end up totally unreadable due to some sector in the directory area being defective. Under MFS, the directory could be located anywhere on the disk. Is this true of HFS also? John Doner
russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) (12/22/90)
In article <1990Dec21.161038.11141@sarah.albany.edu> derek@leah.albany.edu (Cinderella Man) writes: >In article <10547@ilog.UUCP> skyvingt@ilog.UUCP (William Skyvington) writes: >>The rate at which my floppies have been dying over the last year, >>since I've been working on several IIcx machines, is outrageous. > > I too have been encountering FAR more unreadable floppies over >the past year or so, both 800K and 1.4MB. I can state this objectively >because I'm the person Mac users campuswide come to with their problems, >and the number of trashed disks has been increasing slowly but steadily. >This is machine-independent: SE, IIcx, IIci, IIfx, all are about equal. > > >>Frankly, I've reached the point at which I've lost all confidence in >>Macintosh floppies. Could this just be floppy AGE? Especially with the 800K floppies? (I've never had confidence in the 1.44MB ones). Floppies don't last forever, and if a large number of floppies were purchased at about the same time, and are used about as often, you will see them all start failing at once (had this start happening a year ago with some of my oldest 800K floppies). > By the way, my working hypothesis is that it's the library door >scanners producing a large enough field to scramble data. It's the >most common point we all walk through. And I keep my disks free of dust, >so it's not simple media scratches. Seems unlikely-- I've seen disks placed in big tape degaussers, and that doesn't seem to affect them. I've also tryed to erase them by holding them over speakers, etc, unsuccessfully. -- Matthew T. Russotto russotto@eng.umd.edu russotto@wam.umd.edu .sig under construction, like the rest of this campus.
aslakson@cs.umn.edu (Brian Aslakson) (12/22/90)
derek@leah.albany.edu (Cinderella Man) writes: >In article <10547@ilog.UUCP> skyvingt@ilog.UUCP (William Skyvington) writes: >>The rate at which my floppies have been dying over the last year, >>since I've been working on several IIcx machines, is outrageous. > I too have been encountering FAR more unreadable floppies over >the past year or so, both 800K and 1.4MB. I can state this objectively Me too. We hardly use floppies tho, and it's mostly the IIci's (and their superdrives). >>Frankly, I've reached the point at which I've lost all confidence in >>Macintosh floppies. > Ditto here. I bring graphic work and documentation between home Not quite, but getting there. p.s. any solution(s)? -- Brian Aslakson aslakson@cs.umn.edu mac-admin@cs.umn.edu <-= Macintosh related
mcarrick@gara.une.oz.au ( ANSC) (12/22/90)
Like many others I have had many problems with dying floppies, especially 1.4M types. However there were a few more clues: This problem didnt arise until my IIcx was about 9 months old, and it happened gradually (frequency slowly went up). It is now frequently the case that new floppies can't be initialized. It seems to be worse with 1.4M than 800 K floppies. Using a head cleaning disk usually helps for a while. My suggestion about the cause comes from audio tape head problems. As tape heads are used they can become magnetized with the result that one loses high frequency response. You can't pack as much info per mm as before. This is completely curable by de-magnetizing the heads with carefully applied ac sine magnetic source. Can we demagnetize floppie reading heads? There are cassettes designed to do this to cassette decks, but it might be more difficult to pack it all into a slim little floppie. Can someone from Apple or Sony please contribute to this discussion. Greetings for Christmas from Armidale Mick Carrick
ralph@world.std.com (Ralph Lombreglia) (12/22/90)
>An Apple employee two months back told me that Apple has formally >asked >Sony to examine their drives for possible fixes or an out and out recall >of the drives. Apparently, there are enough complaints that Apple has >gone back to what they believe is the source-Sony who makes the drives. Glad to hear it. Like so many others, I've reached the point where I literally don't feel I can trust floppies that come out of my machine, which is a two-year-old SE/30 with the first generation SuperDrive. And it's been going on for a while. In my case, the problem is almost exclusively with 1.4 MB disks. I've asked for a response from the resident Apple tech person on Bix, and received nothing, which made me think that in fact they were working on an offical response.
HMPQC@CUNYVM (12/22/90)
I agree that age is a floppy disk's most insidious enemy. It creeps up and all of a sudden, pow: This disk is unreadable. Do you want to initialize? But dirty floppy drive heads can also do damage. This is especially a problem on publicly accessible Macs, like in a university setting. It's a pain to clean drives on a regular basis, but an important part of a maintenance schedule. Henry M. Pita Internet: hmpqc@cunyvm.cuny.edu Bitnet: hpita@qcvax
ken@slhisc.uucp (Ken Stamm) (12/24/90)
Concerning the Dying Floppy thread, here's something I've found that may be of interest: Sometimes, I've taken an 800K floppy diskette, not fresh, but used, that mounts fine on the desktop, and wanted to re-initialize it. I choose "Erase Disk", do it, and then the system sometimes comes back with "Initialization Failed!" Before throwing that floppy away, I've found that de-gaussing the floppy completely under a powerful bulk eraser (use the ones sold for videotapes, not audio cassettes, they put out a much stronger field) (also, slowly part the floppy from the eraser before switching erase off) usually permits me to then initialize the disk successfully. Obviously, I'm not advocating using old floppies until the oxide wears off, but thought this phenomenon merited mention. Comments? -- Ken Stamm (ken@slhisc.uucp, sun.com!gotham!slhisc!ken) (212)341-3868 Shearson Lehman Brothers, 390 Greenwich St. 4W, New York NY 10013 Views expressed here are opaque to the above corporation.
st890123@pip.cc.brandeis.edu (Bear) (12/26/90)
I can't help you with your dead floppies but.... here at school, over the years... we have been saving ALL of our users dead floppies. Each of those floppies has a lifetime warrenty. The manufacturer doesn't expect you to s send back your one disk.. so he gives you a great warrenty. However, now we are going to send back over 1000 disks to be replaced....good, huh//.? Try it.
briang@bari.Eng.Sun.COM (Brian Gordon) (12/28/90)
In article <1990Dec24.142159.23900@slhisc.uucp> ken@slhisc.uucp (Ken Stamm) writes: <Concerning the Dying Floppy thread, here's something I've found that may be <of interest: < <Sometimes, I've taken an 800K floppy diskette, not fresh, but used, <that mounts fine on the desktop, and wanted to re-initialize it. <I choose "Erase Disk", do it, and then the system sometimes comes back <with "Initialization Failed!" < <Before throwing that floppy away, I've found that de-gaussing the floppy <completely under a powerful bulk eraser (use the ones sold for videotapes, <not audio cassettes, they put out a much stronger field) (also, slowly <part the floppy from the eraser before switching erase off) <usually permits me to then initialize the disk successfully. < <Obviously, I'm not advocating using old floppies until the oxide wears off, <but thought this phenomenon merited mention. < <Comments? I use floppies for either of two reasons -- transfer media (taking data to a different machine) or backup. I compromise in that I buy bulk floppies (@ ~$0.50) rather than small packaged ones (@ $1.00+). After that, I figure, "Why chance it?" If I get 30 miles away from my home system carrying a floppy that won't read, I'm out a lot more than 50 cents. If I need to recover from a backup, and the floppy is "bad", I'm typically out WAY more then 50 cents. Once a floppy becomes suspect, even once, out it goes, no matter how easy it might be to "recover" it. -- :-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-: | Brian G. Gordon briang@Sun.COM (if you trust exotic mailers) | | ...!sun!briangordon (if you route it yourself) | :-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
Brian.Gordon@f20.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Brian Gordon) (12/28/90)
Reply-To: briang@bari.Eng.Sun.COM In article <1990Dec24.142159.23900@slhisc.uucp> ken@slhisc.uucp (Ken Stamm) writes: <Concerning the Dying Floppy thread, here's something I've found that may be <of interest: < <Sometimes, I've taken an 800K floppy diskette, not fresh, but used, <that mounts fine on the desktop, and wanted to re-initialize it. <I choose "Erase Disk", do it, and then the system sometimes comes back <with "Initialization Failed!" < <Before throwing that floppy away, I've found that de-gaussing the floppy <completely under a powerful bulk eraser (use the ones sold for videotapes, <not audio cassettes, they put out a much stronger field) (also, slowly <part the floppy from the eraser before switching erase off) <usually permits me to then initialize the disk successfully. < <Obviously, I'm not advocating using old floppies until the oxide wears off, <but thought this phenomenon merited mention. < <Comments? I use floppies for either of two reasons -- transfer media (taking data to a different machine) or backup. I compromise in that I buy bulk floppies (@ ~$0.50) rather than small packaged ones (@ $1.00+). After that, I figure, "Why chance it?" If I get 30 miles away from my home system carrying a floppy that won't read, I'm out a lot more than 50 cents. If I need to recover from a backup, and the floppy is "bad", I'm typically out WAY more then 50 cents. Once a floppy becomes suspect, even once, out it goes, no matter how easy it might be to "recover" it. -- :-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-: I Brian G. Gordon briang@Sun.COM (if you trust exotic mailers) I I ...!sun!briangordon (if you route it yourself) I :-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-: + Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca. -- Brian Gordon - via FidoNet node 1:105/14 UUCP: ...!{uunet!glacier, ..reed.bitnet}!busker!226!20!Brian.Gordon INTERNET: Brian.Gordon@f20.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG
blitz@vesd04.enet.dec.com (Martin Blitz) (12/31/90)
I have a 2 year old SE\30. I don't use floppies very often, but I have had my share of problems. I have noticed one correlation (admittedly not scientifically documented): Floppies that are write protected don't seem to die (at least as often). In one case, I backed up 30 megs of data to 22 floppies. After writing to each floppy, I write protected it after pulling it out of the machine. At a latter date, I was scanning through these floppies, and noticed that 3 or 4 had dies. Upon examining these floppies, I noticed that I had missed write protecting them, and had reinserted them unprotected. Those that had been protected, are fine. Since then, I have been extremely careful about write-protecting my floppies after writing to them. I can't remember the last time I experienced a failure (knock on wood and all that). Martin Blitz Digital Equipment Corporation Obviously, these opinions are mine, and may not be representative of my employer.
skyvingt@ilog.UUCP (William Skyvington) (01/03/91)
I wish to thank all the people who responded to my initial
posting by telling me that the dirt intake of the powerful
suction pump of the Macintosh IIcx floppy disk drive could be
reduced by sticking a sheet of Post-it* over the slot.
I should have mentioned in my previous posting that I was
already aware of this kind of "solution". It so happens that
I have even invented a quite sophisticated protection system
that I call Post-card**: a name that draws attention to the
fact that my device incorporates a sturdy card-based support
(dimensions: roughly 10 x 15 cm) instead of yellow paper. Not
requiring any kind of adhesive substance, the Post-card
floppy-disk protection system is simply placed up against the
slot of the drive, with its lower edge resting on the table.
When you turn on the mighty vacuum-cleaner engine of the
Macintosh IIcx floppy-disk drive, the Post-card is held firmly
in place in a vertical position. Then, as soon as you turn off
the air intake, the Post-card device is designed to drop
gently forward onto the table. Consequently, you have the
added advantage of being able to tell, at a glance, whether
your machine is turned on or off.
I am marketing the Post-card at the unbelievably low price of
$5 a system, which is nothing compared to the cost of the
Macintosh itself, not to mention the sometimes priceless
value of deceased data. A colorful illustration on the front
surface of the Post-card system adds a note of gayness to the
austere facade of the Macintosh. All Post-card systems are
personally signed by the manufacturer, and carry a customized
greeting. You can request a system that is localized in any
of the world's languages, and the choice of images extends
from the Arc de Triomphe to the Eiffel Tower, including
Pigalle and the Crazy Horse Saloon. Even if Apple Computer
were to offer a drive that no longer killed floppies, your
investment in a Post-card system would not be lost. You could
simply put a postage stamp on the back and forward it, with
a word of thanks, to Cupertino.
Send your greenbacks to 23 Rue Rambuteau, 75004 Paris,
France. No guarantee that your floppies will cease to die...
only that they should agonize for a longer period of time.
--- William Skyvington
skyvington@ilog.fr
* Post-it is a registered trademark of 3M.
** I am currently examining the possibilities of registering
Post-card as a trademark, and patenting my invention.
=============================================================
DISCLAIMER: My employer has nothing to do with my initiatives
in the combat to reduce floppy deaths. My boss hates this
kind of data-storage device. He says it's my own bloody fault
if all my floppies are dying on me. I should be using a
serious professional system of storage. He says he wouldn't
even allow his kids to use floppies on their video-games PC.
So, please don't tell him I'm selling Post-cards.
=============================================================