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Ye Olde 5.25" Diskettes

L

LeChuck

New Member
Joined
Feb 9, 2006
Messages
4
Hi,

I've got a bunch of old 5.25" disks lying around. Some are games, some are just old work files. I know that the old 5.25" disks are really fragile - so, what can I do to preserve them? I know to keep them in a cool and dry place but that's about it. Also, if I ever to copy some of my old 5.25" game software to 3.5" disks (and eventually to CD), is there some kind of program that will make an exact duplicate so I don't have to try to bypass the copyright protection?
 
Are 5.25" disks more fragile to storage than 3.5" disks? As long as they're stored properly, I thought both would last about as long. When it comes to transferring software between formats, I suppose it depends on which kind of loader is used, if it relies on BIOS/DOS or the physical layout of the disk.
 
I would say that 5.25 are a little more fragile. They tend to bend a little more easily. And the newer 3.5 disks have been treated with anti-fungus stuff....

-V
 
I think the older technology for sticking the magnetic stuff onto the disk is not as good either, I have had a lot of 8" disks that the stuff just flaked right off. I've seen the same thing happen to a few 5.25" DD disks too. (Oh yeah, don't get me started on cheap-ass CDs either...).

--T
 
Anti-fungus? Sounds wild. Yes, of course a flexible disk is easier bent or crushed than a hard shell disk, but I would assume as long as you store them in a suitable box, indoors, away from strong magnetism and dry (maybe a bit cool, as the OP wrote), the magnetic coating would last about for the same magnitude of time with both types of disks. Maybe 3.5" disks were magnetized with a stronger force or something, so it would last longer.
 
Remember the Floptical and Magneto Optical drives?

I myself, prefer things like the Castlewood Orb and Syquest Sparq. Which are simmiler to the Iomega Rev. A hard drive platter in a plastic case you shove into the drive. The Sparq quit working correctly and I still use the Orb.

The Orb is 2.2 Gig and the Sparq was 1 Gig I think....

-V
 
I think your best bet is to transfer the over asap, or have some kind of mass volume of storage (Orb or Sparq or tape) that won't corrupt anytime soon so you can access them immediately and not worry about if the disk itself is good or not. But not cd's, especially the ones from the $store. They die.
 
Yeah, the film on my 98SE CD formed a bubble and destroyed the disk.

-V

NOTE
It was a backup on the worlds cheapest CD-R
 
vlad said:
Yeah, the film on my 98SE CD formed a bubble and destroyed the disk.

-V

NOTE
It was a backup on the worlds cheapest CD-R
Click to expand...

The ones I'm thinking of did the same thing. The silver coating bubbles-up and flakes off. I've had this happen with two different kind of disks so far. Some of them were no-name generic type, but the Memorex disks do the same thing. There's no excuse for such shoddy quality.

--T
 
I still have three unrecorded (shrink-wrapped!) Kodak Ultima 80 Silver+Gold that are supposed to last six times longer than regular CD-R did in year 2000 or whenever I bought them. Not sure if a branded disk of today would equal or even be superior. Those disks however are only guaranteed up to 12X, which maybe was the top speed of CD writers back then.
 
Meh, I'm slowly moving everything I've got to CD-R, I've been using the Durabrand junk from Wal-Mart without a problem for almost 2 years now. All my old machines have CD-ROM drives now so I only really need one of half-each bootable type of floppy for install work (1.44M 3.5" and 360K 5.25"). Yes, my 286 has a CD-ROM on it.
 
Durabrand is actually really good. Not just CD-R's.

I'll stick with Hewlett Packard though. Those are Blue....

-V
 
Since we're a great deal out of topic of the original poster, I'd just like to mention that the medals in the Torino 2006 Winter Olympic Games going on right now look almost like CD-Rs, only with a larger center hole. Something like the CD-R met a 5.25" floppy and that's what the winner gets.. a 5.25" floptical maybe?
 
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