![]() Like.A 3 + 1⁄ 2-inch floppy disk removed from its housingĪ floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a fabric that removes dust particles from the spinning disk. I'd rather just make ADFs and store them somewhere. But I don't think I'd ever go that route for my own collection. No one seemed to have a copy of this game so I was happy to do it. I made a pristine copy for TOSEC and they wanted me to use kryoflux to do it. I used that to crunch an original ADF for the copy of A Mind Forever Voyaging, which I have. I find kryoflux way more hassle than it is worth, personally. I've got a few that I didn't have the heart to throw away because I was certain it was more an AGA and/or AT floppy issue. So, of course, now I regret having tossed some of my stuff because I really should re-try reading some. I've read that those floppy drives had issues. Now, I should also point out that most of the errors I encountered were when I was using my NOS "Amiga Technologies" 1200. ![]() I have stacks of Amiga disks that have read errors (and I've thrown even more away). Not unless you really try to damage them. I have some ancient C64 5.25" disks and and they just never seem to go bad. It's funny you say that - I've had a very similar experience. What have you found with your old disk collections?Īctually I am not sure why but I, as well as other industry gurus, have found that Amiga disks and 3.5" disks in general did not fare so well with time. I can't think of the names off hand but look on Aminet and under disk utilities. There is also a couple of utilities for recovering disk errors. It can show no errors on a disk and copy it fine when one of my older Amiga drives will see errors. I have a newly made external drive that reads disks very well. But do try it on multiple drives as some older drives seem to have a hard time so make sure the heads are clean. But I also have used a KryoFlux and something I like better the SuperCard Proįor checking disks I use X-Copy scandisk. I use various tools on Amiga side, like TransADF. So what tools do you use to transfer disks or Utilities to check disks? I always stick with 90% or greater Isopropyl. ![]() ![]() They are not always the same, look at the ingredients if you are uncertain. Some places use Rubbing Alcohol and Isopropyl alcohol interchangeably. Same with the Cleaning disk it will usually tell you only a drop or two of solution. Just moisten the swab to get just enough to clean it. If that procedure is too much for you, you can still buy both 5.25" and 3.5" disk head cleaner kits.Ī couple notes: 1. The same process is for the Commodore 5.25 drives. They have a little bit of play but if you don't know what how to identify how much play it is best not to touch it. Do not apply too much pressure and do not lift the top head out of the way or you may damage it. This is more critical for 5.25" drives but 3.5" drive heads get dirty too.įor Amiga you could disassemble the top case to get to the drives and then use a little Isopropyl (90%+) alcohol and moisten a Qtip and swab both the upper and lower head gently. One thing that is critical to do when you use old disks is to clean your drive head often. It is a pain but it can mean the difference between complete data loss and recovering files. That being said I have made it a habit to test my old disks and I have found some that have worked only after cleaning the disk surface with Isopropyl alcohol and a Qtip. It could be mold or it could be oxidation. These disks showed black spots on the surface that don't really come off. The ones that did seem to go bad were certain makes of 3M (SSDD) and Centron (SSDD) which I can see from the disk that they were likely made by 3M. Now compare that to 5.25" C64 (and others) disks that I have (over 2000) and I have had very few go bad even ones going back to VIC-20 days with a date I put on them in 1982! Still work perfectly. I can format said disks and they will work fine so I am not sure what the cause is other then some disks just lose it after a while. I mean a lot of disks have errors on them. I have far, far more disks on Amiga (I have over 1000) that have gone bad since going into storage in the late 90's. Some of these disks are now close to 30 years old.Īctually I am not sure why but I, as well as other industry gurus, have found that Amiga disks and 3.5" disks in general did not fare so well with time. I thought it might be a good idea to open up a topic about your experiences with your old Amiga disks.
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