🚀 go-pugleaf

Ho ho ho...

Once, in a fit of boredom, I decided to see how fragile floppy diskettes
really are.  Using an Apple //e, I formatted a 5.25" diskette and tested
it with a program that reads every sector and reports how many are
unreadable.  Unsurprisingly, all sectors were readable after formatting.

First I grasped the media with my thumb and forefinger, presumably
getting skin oils on it.  This had no effect.

Next I removed the media from its jacket.  Fortunately, Apple II drives
are able to mount a bare disk, if you're careful to insert it properly.  

I spit on the disk and wiped it on the rug; then carefully cleaned it
off (I didn't want to damage the drive).  This caused one or two bad
sectors.

I printed a document on the dot-matrix printer and slid the disk under
the printhead, printing characters all over both sides of the disk.
This caused the read rate (readable sectors/total sectors) to go down to
about 95%.

I stapled the disk several times, then removed the staples.  Read rate
went down to about 90%.

I filled a large measuring cup with water, rolled the disk up somewhat
to fit it in, and microwaved the whole assembly until the water boiled.
This reduced the read rate to about 80%.

Next I ironed the disk with a regular steam iron.  This *improved* the
read rate to a bit over 85% -- presumbly because it flattened out the
media, which had taken on the curved shape of the measuring cup.

Finally, I scorched the disk in several places with a cigarette.  This
significantly lowered the read rate (55%?), suggesting that cigarettes
are as bad for diskettes as for people...  ;-}

Of course, all it takes is one strategically placed bad sector to make
most filesystem formats unreadable (or at least a big pain to
reconstruct).

Bela Lubkin    * *    //  fi...@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us  CI$: 73047,1112 (slow)
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R Pentomino    *   \X/  Filbo @ Pyrzqxgl +408-476-4633 and XBBS +408-476-4945