Dario Greggio wrote:

> Hi Robert, in general I do agree with you (and it's sad) but...
> 
> Robert Rolf wrote:
> 
> 
>>Can you read an 8" CP/M floppy? How about a Kaypro 5" disk? 1/2" 7 track magtape?
> 
> 
> What I meant is that I always try to move my things (which do *all* fit 
> on a hard disc, since hard discs become larger and larger) to new 
> storage supports. Just to be safe.
> 
> Curious is, right now I have some files on a 5 1/4 floppy that I'd like 
> to read, because I probably forgot to copy them when I let that 

"Forgot to copy". EXACTLY the problem. Amazing how much valuable history is
found in unexpected places when homes are emptied of their contents during a move.

> technology go, back in 1995 or so...
> I have a reader, floppies should still work, BIOS recognizes the FDD (a 
> P4 machine), but no luck :-(

Do you have a blank floppy you could check it with? Run the format command and
make sure that it's actually stepping the drive across the media.
If the format verifies (/V option?) it's probably an alignment issue.

  The lube on old FDDs gets
quite stiff and will drag the head quite far off track. I have found that one
can usually recover old data by using a 1.2MB drive on 360K media because the
narrower head gap has a wider track underneath so misalignment is less of an issue.

One can also bias the head position by orienting the drive so that the head is pulling or
pushing on the actuator. i.e. slot facing the ceiling or the floor.
Often it is as simple as cleaning the head with an alcohol based disk cleaner (white
nylon inside a disk sleeve. Do NOT use the 'fine sandpaper' style cleaners.
Old media sheds, so it may have just clogged the head.
Old media also looses magnetic strength so changing to a more sensitive drive
can help (I have an ancient Epson drive that can read just about anything I've thrown
at it).

And there are likely people around you have 'doorstop PCs' you could borrow to see
if you can read the media in them.

Robert

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