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Copying data off of 1.44mb floppies ...

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50ShadesOfDirt:
... so far, I've:
  - tried a current & portable USB 1.44mb fdd, and it did work for a few weeks, but I must have used it too hard (ran 50 or so old floppies through it), and it quit reading the floppies. No idea how to fix it ...
  - resurrected an old pc, and it's physical 1.44mb floppy drive still works, so running more through it.

The data is able to be read, after nearly 30 years. The old pc also is letting me format many of the disks (about two thirds of them). If format pauses/makes-noise on any sector, I toss the floppy.

I've also ordered some of the other options, like:
  - usb pcb interface to old physical 1.44mb floppy
  - greaseweazle (just to experiment with "flux" effort ... intrigued by the concept)

Still have to chew through several hundreds of these floppies. Haven't gotten to the 5-1/4" floppies yet ... Hopefully, when I dig deep enough into the storage units, I'll find an old pc with such a drive in it, and won't have to pay outrageous ebay prices any time soon. Anyone aware of a more modern solution for 5-1/4" drives?

So, data is being read off of nearly 30-y.o. 1.44mb 3.5" floppies. Mostly able to get data off of nearly 20-y.o. cdrom's ... not bad!

ebastler:

--- Quote from: 50ShadesOfDirt on November 03, 2023, 02:38:26 pm ---Haven't gotten to the 5-1/4" floppies yet ... Hopefully, when I dig deep enough into the storage units, I'll find an old pc with such a drive in it, and won't have to pay outrageous ebay prices any time soon. Anyone aware of a more modern solution for 5-1/4" drives?

--- End quote ---

You will obviously need a physical 5.25" drive, no way around that. Find, borrow or buy one! ;)

If you don't want to fire up an old PC and then figure out how to get data downloaded from that machine: Greaseweazle should also handle 5.25" drives nicely. You will need to supply 12V for the motor externally, of course. (Not sure whether there were any late, 5V-only 5.25" drives?)

It's worth pointing out that you do not necessarily have to work in "raw flux" mode with GreaseWeazle. The software (gw.exe) knows a wealth of floppy formats and can decode the flux tracks into binary sector data on the fly, storing clean binary images directly. You can even define your own disk formats easily, if you have something with exotic block sizes, blocks per track etc., by adding a simple description to the diskdefs.cfg file -- but standard DOS/Windows PC disks are of course already pre-defined.

HwAoRrDk:

--- Quote from: 50ShadesOfDirt on November 03, 2023, 02:38:26 pm ---Mostly able to get data off of nearly 20-y.o. cdrom's ... not bad!

--- End quote ---

I have recently been archiving some magazine cover CD-ROMs and putting them on archive.org. The earliest were from 1996, and they all read perfectly. Hell, I have CD-Rs from the early 2000s and they still read just fine.

However, I think some drives are more sensitive to minor problems than others. I had a couple of discs from 1998 that refused to read properly using ImgBurn in the LG BD-ROM drive in my everyday PC. So I fired up an older PC running Linux and popped them in the Lite-On DVD-ROM drive (vintage 2005 IIRC!) in that machine and they copied with no errors or complaints using dd. :-//

edpalmer42:
If you're plowing through that many floppies, you should also hunt down a few floppy cleaning disks.  It's possible (likely?) that the old floppies might shed more material than when they were young.

CJay:
Also, grab yourself a Greaseweasle (or knock one together) and some 'real' floppy drives, I've found the USB ones are pretty flimsy

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