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#16
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3.5 floppy
HS wrote:
On 11/3/2017 1:54 PM, Fokke Nauta wrote: On 1-11-2017 18:34, Ed Mc wrote: If I purchase one of the 3.5 USB external floppy drives available, would I be able to access the files (FAT 32) on my old floppy's, using Windows 7? I do have an old XP hard disk somewhere. Not sure if it would recognize the USB ports though. Thanks Yes, I still have an USB Floppy drive and I was able to read my floppy's before I destroyed them. Using Win 7 Pro 64b. So - it should work. You need 32 bit version of windows 7 Not true. I'm on the x64 version and floppies work just fine. -- I have seen through to the heart of our enemy this night. And I pity them. |
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#17
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3.5 floppy
[]
On 1-11-2017 18:34, Ed Mc wrote: If I purchase one of the 3.5 USB external floppy drives available, would I be able to access the files (FAT 32) on my old floppy's, using Windows 7? I do have an old XP hard disk somewhere. Not sure if it would recognize the USB ports though. Thanks [] Actually, they'll be FAT12, not FAT32, IIRR. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf "Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion." - Harlan Ellison |
#18
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3.5 floppy
In message , T writes:
On 11/05/2017 12:22 AM, Andy wrote: They work fine Ed i have one on my new system reads and writes to the disk's just fine Be careful with floppy disks. It has been a long time since the media was reliable. Get your stuff off and backup up in several locations: hard drive, USB stick, etc.. It hasn't suddenly become unreliable; if you write something to a reasonably little-used and recently formatted floppy now, it will remain readable for as long as it ever did. But, certainly, how long that is is generally less than the time between now and when floppies were common, i. e. material written to them then has passed its reliable-until date. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf "Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion." - Harlan Ellison |
#19
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3.5 floppy
On 11/05/2017 05:18 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , T writes: On 11/05/2017 12:22 AM, Andy wrote: They work fine Ed i have one on my new system reads and writes to the disk's just fine Be careful with floppy disks.Â* It has been a long time since the media was reliable.Â* Get your stuff off and backup up in several locations: hard drive, USB stick, etc.. It hasn't suddenly become unreliable; if you write something to a reasonably little-used and recently formatted floppy now, it will remain readable for as long as it ever did. But, certainly, how long that is is generally less than the time between now and when floppies were common, i. e. material written to them then has passed its reliable-until date. I was talking about going through box after box of shrink wrapped floppies to find a good one. And wen I finally found one, it went to hell in a week. All my old ones worked fine. My point was that he may not be able to find new reliable floppy disks |
#20
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3.5 floppy
In message , T writes:
On 11/05/2017 05:18 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: In message , T writes: On 11/05/2017 12:22 AM, Andy wrote: They work fine Ed i have one on my new system reads and writes to the disk's just fine Be careful with floppy disks.* It has been a long time since the media was reliable.* Get your stuff off and backup up in several locations: hard drive, USB stick, etc.. It hasn't suddenly become unreliable; if you write something to a reasonably little-used and recently formatted floppy now, it will remain readable for as long as it ever did. But, certainly, how long that is is generally less than the time between now and when floppies were common, i. e. material written to them then has passed its reliable-until date. I was talking about going through box after box of shrink wrapped floppies to find a good one. And wen I finally found one, it went to hell in a week. All my old ones worked fine. My point was that he may not be able to find new reliable floppy disks That is interesting. Suggests that the manufacturers have forgotten how to make them. Unless, perhaps, these shrink-wrapped ones were "unused" rather than "new" - i. e. are actually old stock - and your testing-to-find-good didn't involve refreshing them. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Everyone learns from science. It all depends how you use the knowledge. - "Gil Grissom" (CSI). |
#21
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3.5 floppy
On 5-11-2017 14:23, HS wrote:
On 11/3/2017 1:54 PM, Fokke Nauta wrote: On 1-11-2017 18:34, Ed Mc wrote: If I purchase one of the 3.5 USB external floppy drives available, would I be able to access the files (FAT 32) on my old floppy's, using Windows 7? I do have an old XP hard disk somewhere. Not sure if it would recognize the USB ports though. Thanks Yes, I still have an USB Floppy drive and I was able to read my floppy's before I destroyed them. Using Win 7 Pro 64b. So - it should work. Fokke You need 32 bit version of windows 7 s No. It works fine on a 64 bit system. Fokke |
#22
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3.5 floppy
On 11/06/2017 05:55 AM, Wolf K wrote:
On 2017-11-05 21:13, T wrote: On 11/05/2017 05:18 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: In message , T writes: On 11/05/2017 12:22 AM, Andy wrote: They work fine Ed i have one on my new system reads and writes to the disk's just fine Be careful with floppy disks.Â* It has been a long time since the media was reliable.Â* Get your stuff off and backup up in several locations: hard drive, USB stick, etc.. It hasn't suddenly become unreliable; if you write something to a reasonably little-used and recently formatted floppy now, it will remain readable for as long as it ever did. But, certainly, how long that is is generally less than the time between now and when floppies were common, i. e. material written to them then has passed its reliable-until date. I was talking about going through box after box of shrink wrapped floppies to find a good one.Â* And wen I finally found one, it went to hell in a week.Â*Â* All my old ones worked fine.Â* My point was that he may not be able to find new reliable floppy disks Did you format it? Or did you rely on its pre-formatted state? Up, down, sideways. They came preformatted. Tried erasing, reformatting, you name it. New floppies are garbage. The old ones still work. |
#23
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3.5 floppy
On 11/06/2017 12:46 PM, T wrote:
On 11/06/2017 05:55 AM, Wolf K wrote: On 2017-11-05 21:13, T wrote: On 11/05/2017 05:18 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: In message , T writes: On 11/05/2017 12:22 AM, Andy wrote: They work fine Ed i have one on my new system reads and writes to the disk's just fine Be careful with floppy disks.Â* It has been a long time since the media was reliable.Â* Get your stuff off and backup up in several locations: hard drive, USB stick, etc.. It hasn't suddenly become unreliable; if you write something to a reasonably little-used and recently formatted floppy now, it will remain readable for as long as it ever did. But, certainly, how long that is is generally less than the time between now and when floppies were common, i. e. material written to them then has passed its reliable-until date. I was talking about going through box after box of shrink wrapped floppies to find a good one.Â* And wen I finally found one, it went to hell in a week.Â*Â* All my old ones worked fine.Â* My point was that he may not be able to find new reliable floppy disks Did you format it? Or did you rely on its pre-formatted state? Up, down, sideways.Â* They came preformatted.Â* Tried erasing, reformatting, you name it.Â* New floppies are garbage. The old ones still work. Oh ya, even changed floppy drives! |
#24
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3.5 floppy
On 11/06/2017 12:57 PM, T wrote:
On 11/06/2017 12:46 PM, T wrote: On 11/06/2017 05:55 AM, Wolf K wrote: On 2017-11-05 21:13, T wrote: On 11/05/2017 05:18 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: In message , T writes: On 11/05/2017 12:22 AM, Andy wrote: They work fine Ed i have one on my new system reads and writes to the disk's just fine Be careful with floppy disks.Â* It has been a long time since the media was reliable.Â* Get your stuff off and backup up in several locations: hard drive, USB stick, etc.. It hasn't suddenly become unreliable; if you write something to a reasonably little-used and recently formatted floppy now, it will remain readable for as long as it ever did. But, certainly, how long that is is generally less than the time between now and when floppies were common, i. e. material written to them then has passed its reliable-until date. I was talking about going through box after box of shrink wrapped floppies to find a good one.Â* And wen I finally found one, it went to hell in a week.Â*Â* All my old ones worked fine.Â* My point was that he may not be able to find new reliable floppy disks Did you format it? Or did you rely on its pre-formatted state? Up, down, sideways.Â* They came preformatted.Â* Tried erasing, reformatting, you name it.Â* New floppies are garbage. The old ones still work. Oh ya, even changed floppy drives! I still carry around one f those usb floppy drives for the odd occasion when a customer has a license key on a floppy. |
#25
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3.5 floppy
On 11/1/2017 10:34 AM, Ed Mc wrote:
If I purchase one of the 3.5 USB external floppy drives available, would I be able to access the files (FAT 32) on my old floppy's, using Windows 7? I do have an old XP hard disk somewhere. Not sure if it would recognize the USB ports though. Thanks I received the floppy drive, which I bought online, and gave it a try. Could see some files but could not activate them in any way. I could see Icons of photo's but not the pictures. Sometimes I got the 'disk not formatted' error msg., or 'Not Responding'. Used on Win7 OS and XP, same resuts.... Oh well, a $15 lesson learned. -- Ed Mc |
#26
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3.5 floppy
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#27
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3.5 floppy
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , pjp writes: In article , lid says... On 11/1/2017 10:34 AM, Ed Mc wrote: If I purchase one of the 3.5 USB external floppy drives available, would I be able to access the files (FAT 32) on my old floppy's, using Windows 7? I do have an old XP hard disk somewhere. Not sure if it would recognize the USB ports though. Thanks I received the floppy drive, which I bought online, and gave it a try. Could see some files but could not activate them in any way. I could see Icons of photo's but not the pictures. Sometimes I got the 'disk not formatted' error msg., or 'Not Responding'. Used on Win7 OS and XP, same resuts.... Oh well, a $15 lesson learned. Probably the floppy, not the drive. Could you drag the files (e. g. to the desktop), and then play with them from there? Like persons said .. those old floppies do not hold up well and were never really reliable. I suspect old tape backups are about same given my experience with stereo reel-to-reel tapes I own. Different; digital tapes are, well, digital, and I don't know how reliable or otherwise they are - ISTR they were considered a reasonably _good_ backup medium (though that might only have been in comparison to alternatives then available, and/or possibly because they were the only affordable option with the _capacity_ at that time). The _drives_ might not have been though. FWIW, I've found linear analogue tapes (cassette or reel-to-reel) more or less last indefinitely, provided the mechanics (deck and cassette mechanisms) don't mangle them. If I was having trouble, I'd probably try the equivalent of "winimage" of the floppy. And work on a copy of it. You can use "dd.exe" to copy a floppy if you want. You can mount a .IMA in VirtualBox and read the floppy image from there, without actually having to transfer the .IMA to another floppy, or buy a copy of WinImage. http://www.chrysocome.net/downloads/dd-0.6beta3.zip C:\ dd --list C:\ dd if=\\?\Device\Floppy0 of=C:\myflop.ima rawwrite dd for windows version 0.6beta3. Written by John Newbigin This program is covered by terms of the GPL Version 2. 2880+0 records in 2880+0 records out --- correct number of sectors 2880*512=1,474,560 C:\ dir Volume in drive C is WINXP_N2 11/12/2017 04:40 PM 1,474,560 myflop.ima That also suggests, if a person were to use Linux and a copy of ddrescue, they *might* try reading the floppy over and over again, to build up a good copy. https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/b.../msg00004.html On a modern Linux, the name of the package to install is "gddrescue" to get the executable. You should not have to mount the floppy, as device level access should be good enough. Nothing says that repetitively reading a floppy, gets you different results. It probably doesn't work quite as well as a hard drive (since the hard drive does error correction using a polynomial the user cannot access). I don't think the floppy has any error correction, and it probably only has error detection for CRC errors. And as for VirtualBox and mounting .ima files, it's a bit of a toad. Before you start the VirtualBox guest OS running, you have to go to the Settings for the guest machine and add a floppy drive controller to the Storage section. Then you can "insert" .ima files as if they were virtual floppy diskettes. I don't think any of this helps, but if you're desperate, a few experiments wouldn't hurt, to find out. Paul |
#28
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3.5 floppy
In message , Wolf K
writes: On 2017-11-12 15:30, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: In message , pjp writes: In article , lid says... [...] Like persons said .. those old floppies do not hold up well and were never really reliable. I suspect old tape backups are about same given my experience with stereo reel-to-reel tapes I own. Different; digital tapes are, well, digital, and I don't know how [] AFAIK, digital tapes were and are more reliable than analog because the magnetic signal has to attenuate almost to zero before the data becomes unreadable. Digital relies on the difference between 1 & 0 encoded bits, not on their relative strength. So as long as the difference is above a certain (rather low) threshold, the bits are still distinguishable, hence readable. I don't know if they were recorded as presence or absence of magnetisation (or magnetisation in one direction or the other), or if they actually used FM - a one being one tone, a zero being another. (The minimum without DSP being, IIRR, one and a half cycles of one tone, one cycle of the other - I think that's known as MFM.) Analog tapes record a range of signal strengths, so even a mild attenuation will degrade the information. For audio, that may not be an issue, you just boost the amp a bit. True. IME, it doesn't degrade that much. For video it can be a problem, check ancient VHS tapes, or note the degraded images from archived analogue tapes shown in documentaries, etc. Video on tape does use FM - the DC video signal isn't recorded as a magnetic field of strength proportional to the brightness (or darkness) of the picture; it is modulated onto an FM carrier, and it is that that is recorded onto the tape. There are several reasons for that. A given head (even if the tape is perfect) can only record a limited number of decades of frequency range, for physical reasons - it falls off at either the low or the high end, whereas [SD] video goes from DC to about 6 MHz; video recording is only possible by using several heads and switching between them, and amplitude variations at the switching points would cause flicker; and the FM system gives some immunity to distortion. So it becomes more or less a digital (or binary) process. The deterioration apparent from old video recordings isn't just due to signal attenuation due to demagnetisation; it can be from various causes, from total loss of signal (tape coating coming off), to deteriorating mechanics (of the replay equipment [especially the rarer formats] or the original recording equipment being out of alignment!), to it not having been that great in the first place [VHS was the worst of the three mass-market domestic systems - it won because it was the cheapest - especially when LP or EP speed]. FWIW, I found that floppies were sometimes unreadable in the summer humidity. Forcing a scan usually fixed that, I surmise it cleaned off the humidity. And again FWIW, the 5-1/4 disks seemed more reliable, but I didn't keep any of them longer than about 5 years. The 5.25" recorded either the same (if 360K), or less (1.2M vs. 1.44M), data on a larger area than the 3.5", so the surface area per bit was greater. (Granted, the alignment mechanism was _a little_ cruder, but not I suspect by that much.) So try a disk scan of the bad floppy. As long as Windows recognises it, the scan should work, and may clean up the floppy enough to make it readable. As with HDs, some will say that a scan (of the sort that tries to correct errors, anyway - any write at all) might make matters worse. Though unless the data was priceless, I agree, I'd try it. Footnote: magnetic layer flaking off can be a serious problem. I never noticed much brown dust in drives or floppy cases, but I guess it can be. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf And Jonathan Harker would never have sent all those letters to his beloved Mina from Transylvania, he'd have texted her instead. "Stuck in weird castle w guy w big teeth. Missing u. xxxx (-:" - Alison Graham, RT 2015/11/7-13 |
#29
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3.5 floppy
Wolf K wrote:
On 2017-11-12 15:30, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: In message , pjp writes: In article , lid says... [...] Like persons said .. those old floppies do not hold up well and were never really reliable. I suspect old tape backups are about same given my experience with stereo reel-to-reel tapes I own. Different; digital tapes are, well, digital, and I don't know how reliable or otherwise they are - ISTR they were considered a reasonably _good_ backup medium (though that might only have been in comparison to alternatives then available, and/or possibly because they were the only affordable option with the _capacity_ at that time). The _drives_ might not have been though. FWIW, I've found linear analogue tapes (cassette or reel-to-reel) more or less last indefinitely, provided the mechanics (deck and cassette mechanisms) don't mangle them. AFAIK, digital tapes were and are more reliable than analog because the magnetic signal has to attenuate almost to zero before the data becomes unreadable. Digital relies on the difference between 1 & 0 encoded bits, not on their relative strength. So as long as the difference is above a certain (rather low) threshold, the bits are still distinguishable, hence readable. Analog tapes record a range of signal strengths, so even a mild attenuation will degrade the information. For audio, that may not be an issue, you just boost the amp a bit. For video it can be a problem, check ancient VHS tapes, or note the degraded images from archived analogue tapes shown in documentaries, etc. FWIW, I found that floppies were sometimes unreadable in the summer humidity. Forcing a scan usually fixed that, I surmise it cleaned off the humidity. And again FWIW, the 5-1/4 disks seemed more reliable, but I didn't keep any of them longer than about 5 years. So try a disk scan of the bad floppy. As long as Windows recognises it, the scan should work, and may clean up the floppy enough to make it readable. Footnote: magnetic layer flaking off can be a serious problem. Historically, yes. my first reel to reel recorder, the media was terrible. The cleaning pads were filthy after only a year of usage. In the 8" floppy era, cleanliness was an issue too. We had cleaning kits, with a white fiber disc inside a regular 8" floppy envelope. The kits came with little packets of ethanol. I used to stock multiple kits in my desk drawer, to deal with the "Paul, my floppy won't read" crowd. My first question for them was "when was the last time you used your cleaning kit". The answer was "oh, I didn't know you had to clean them". And off we'd go. (You must wait for the alcohol left on the head to dry, before using the drive again.) That was the 8" era. Lots of interworking issues (you had to format a floppy, on the drive you intended to *read* the floppy on later). If a floppy failed on write, then you never got to test the read step anyway. If the writer could write to it, then taking it back to the 8" drive that did the formatting, it was guaranteed to be readable. At some point, the science of binders and mylar improved to the point, that flaking was minimal. I've never used a cleaning kit for a 3.5" floppy. I've never *seen* a cleaning kit for a 3.5" floppy. You don't even need to blow the dust out of them. If you smoke, how much "tar buildup" can they take ? Dunno. The binder, the magnetic material, they adhere to the mylar disc. Then the floppy factory "polishes" the surface of the resulting disc, to make it smooth enough for surface contact and head loading. That's the description on the computer encyclopedia articles. Is that how it is actually done ? We'll never know, unless the people who worked in those factories, write an article for us. Maybe that media doesn't have good remanence, but other than that it has pretty good maintenance characteristics. Modern storage technologies rely on error correction, to handle "signal down in noise". That extends the ability of a storage system to work, even if the media isn't perfect. But eventually, the number of errors will exceed the capacity (hamming distance) of the method used to provide correction. HDD have Fire Polynomials (those handle a limited number of single bit errors per sector). SSDs have a 10% overhead (roughly) for their error correcting code. Virtually every TLC sector read has errors, until the SSD corrector is finished with it. Optical media has three dimensional Reed Solomon, allowing scratched discs to tolerate that physical abuse and still be readable. The correction on optical media is so powerful, it takes loss of servo lock on the groove, to actually prevent optical media from being read back. If the head cannot stay positioned over the spiral groove on regular optical media, it's all over for you. Floppies don't have that. Floppies might have a CRC check. I didn't go look up the format information to see. CRC is there to detect errors, not to correct them. With no error correction capabilities, the signal better be "nice and fat", or you're not getting it back. The encoding method is MFM or similar (which has a high clock content, and allows a PLL to develop a clock for sampling the data bit patterns at the appropriate point in time). Remember that the controllers for this, the Intel or NEC chip on the motherboard, was back in a gate-count-constrained era, so they couldn't dream up complicated methods for recording. If you were to apply DSP to the signal coming from the floppy heads today, I'm sure you could recover *everything*. Encodings like MFM or similar, are terribly wasteful, but they also have "strong" characteristics. Even with remanence failure, you could recover all the data. Only an outright blemish in the media (scratched or torn mylar) would make recovery impractical. Simply pick the analog signal off the heads, run it into an ADC, record the signal as the floppy read is attempted, and you should be able to post-process that ADC signal into usable data. And no, I don't plan to get into the "floppy data recovery" business :-) Using an LS-120 or LS-240 to read the floppies, *might* help a tiny bit, because those don't use steppers with a fixed pitch. And the heads are under servo control. The head positioner works more like a hard drive, and is continuously tunable. The LS-120 uses a laser (optical) for servo control on its own high density recordings, but the drive is also backward compatible with regular floppy recordings (which would have no optical servo marks). Perhaps if such a device moved the heads a bit left or right, to "tune up" the signal, you'd get more data back. Those LS-120 drives, connected to an IDE connector. I can't really guess how intelligent the drive is, whether it's as dumb as a post and the "driver" does all the magic. Given the era, that's a possibility. The biggest issue there, might be only being able to get a driver for WinNT or something. I think there's some room here for a "home scientist" to recover that data. A new hobby for under $1000 :-) Paul |
#30
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3.5 floppy
On 11/12/2017 7:00 AM, Ed Mc wrote:
On 11/1/2017 10:34 AM, Ed Mc wrote: If I purchase one of the 3.5 USB external floppy drives available, would I be able to access the files (FAT 32) on my old floppy's, using Windows 7? I do have an old XP hard disk somewhere. Not sure if it would recognize the USB ports though. Thanks Â*Â*Â*Â*I received the floppy drive, which I bought online, and gave it a try. Could see some files but could not activate them in any way. I could see Icons of photo's but not the pictures. Sometimes I got the 'disk not formatted' error msg., or 'Not Responding'. Used on Win7 OS and XP, same resuts.... Oh well, a $15 lesson learned. Ed Mc I've had old floppies seize up, or have trouble rotating, using a pen or something to insert into the offset hole near the center of the floppy so you can spin it a few times might work. You can also try snapping the housing open, freeing up the floppy, then closing it again, sometimes that works. If the floppy is already considered dead or unusable you have nothing to lose. |
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