Mastodawn

Bill Kendrick Feb 21

Do you have 5.25" and 8" floppy disks that are spare, low-quality, degrading, or just generally in bad shape?

I'd like to take my floppy disk data recovery game to the next level. I have equipment, but there's no substitute for experience. Therefore I'm looking for loose collections of old floppy disks to practice on. I'm especially interested in working with disks where the binder affixing the media to the donut is starting to fail.

I'm in London; will pay shipping; can pick up disks around here as well. Boosts are appreciated!

Marcin Juszkiewicz 🙃Feb 21

@stepleton @penguin42

Ah, floppies... I got an unpacked box of 2S/HD ones last week. Will give it to my friend's museum.

@stepleton I am currently sorting through probably 2,000 1.2MB and 2.4MB (5.25”) diskettes looking for good ones for reuse. I will have plenty of “trash” diskettes as part of the process, you’re welcome to as many as you want when I’m done. Favoriting this post so I can find it again.

Khleedril Feb 21

@jgeorge @stepleton Why don't you bookmark it?

@stepleton Fascinating. I think I’ve thrown my 5 1/4 disks away sometime in the '90s, but it’s great that you are (trying to?) help people who still have data on those disks. 👍🏻

Tom Stepleton Feb 21

@Mpwg yes, that's the idea! In fact there is a a data recovery effort I'm working towards where I'd like to be at the top of my game.

penguin42 Feb 21

@stepleton Hmm, I've got a pile of 8" sitting in a box on the top shelf, not sure of the state or content; I'd be happy to send them to a good home. DM me where you want them.

@stepleton Are BBC Micro discs in scope?

Tom Stepleton Feb 21

@DamonHD Absolutely! I'll be making flux recordings in any case, using a Greaseweazle or an Applesauce controller.

Ω 🌍 Gus Posey Feb 21

@stepleton I bet your house smells AMAZING.

Simon Brooke Feb 21

@stepleton Bookmarked. I may well have; and I may well be exceedingly grateful to recover some long lost stuff.

Mitch Rose Feb 21

I'm in the U.S. and certain I have some in storage, which I can't easily get to right away. But happy to help if you can wait. LMK

Knightmare Feb 21

@stepleton almost all my 3.5" floppies have gone bad. I have like two purchased game disks that still work on my Amiga.

Raven667 Feb 21

@stepleton Thats an interesting offer, I still have boxes of 5 1/4 disks from my youth, mostly copied video games, and I've tried imaging them but only had limited success. It'd be cool if I had some things which weren't in archive.org already which were recoverable.

I'm in the USA so I don't know if that is possible. I do have a spreadsheet printout where I captured all the filenames of the game disks from back in the day, but I don't know about the original file, it's probably on one of the data disks ;-)

Steen Eiler Jørgensen Feb 21

@stepleton A few years ago, I rescued all my old 5.25" floppies, except one - the one with all the good stuff on 😭

@stepleton oh hang on.
I think I still have some 5.25" disks that were recovered from (no joke) an abandoned level of a Welsh nylon factory.

I pulled them out of a literal carpet of dust 😅

I'll take a look later if you're interested?

Tom Stepleton Feb 21

@DosFox Sounds like a worthy challenge! I'd like to give them a go, but just remember that my objective is practice (so don't share them if they are valuable to you). Thanks!

@stepleton I'll see if I still have them!

I'm not terribly attached them - there is a chance I've already thrown them out 😅😅

@DosFox @stepleton now I want to see a game with a level in an abandoned Welsh nylon factory 🏭

@WillFlux @stepleton there's a good chance you may have already seen it before - it was used as a filming location for doctor who!

@stepleton ahhh sorry to say I misremembered - unfortunately they're all 3.5"!

Good ol' fallible human memory

Poul-Henning Kamp Feb 21

If you get into the "really weird old floppy formats" this may come handy:

https://github.com/Datamuseum-DK/FloppyTools

GitHub - Datamuseum-DK/FloppyTools: Tools for preservation of floppy disks

Tools for preservation of floppy disks. Contribute to Datamuseum-DK/FloppyTools development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

scunneen (he/him) 🚋Feb 21

@stepleton I don't know if this would be any help, but I just accidentally bought some blank 8" ds/dd disks when I intended to buy 5.25 inch disks. I could send them to you if you're interested.

Tom Stepleton Feb 21

@scunneen I'd feel a little foolish turning away blank 8" disks! But I'm in London and it seems like shipping to the UK could be expensive. How many did you get?

scunneen (he/him) 🚋Feb 21

@stepleton Only 4. They come with their original IBM box.

scunneen (he/him) 🚋Feb 21

@stepleton It looks like sending the box would be very expensive but if I just sent the disks in a large envelope with little/no padding it would cost $10.

Tom Stepleton Feb 22

@scunneen Well, I guess I won't pass that up 🙂 I'll DM you an address...

Saustrup Feb 21

@stepleton I've got some old CP/M disks for the #GeminiMicrocomputers Galaxy system that may be worthy contentants?

Anne Delong Feb 22

Sorry, I chopped up my old floppies and made recorder mutes and laptop camera covers.

https://annedelong.timetraces.ca/recorder_mute.htm

Make your own recorder mute - and recycle too!

Whiskers 🇦🇺Feb 22

@stepleton Very niche operation 👏
(Was in magnetic media industry, Gloucestershire, early 1980s 👋)

EventOrg Feb 22

Maybe he ⬆️ can become an ally for your time-machine-project.

Sebastian Crane 🏳️‍⚧️Feb 22

@stepleton Oh I think I have a few! I'll take a look and get back to you if so. Wishing you good luck and much fun with your data recovery exercises :)

Stephen Paulger Feb 22

@stepleton might be worth asking https://www.computinghistory.org.uk

The Centre for Computing History - Computer and Video Game Museum - Cambridge

The Centre for Computing History is a computer and video game museum based in Cambridge, UK. With a collection of vintage computers and game consoles, many of the exhibits are hands on and interactive.

Gypsum Fantastic Feb 22

@stepleton I've got a big box of maybe 50 old BBC Micro 5.25" ones somewhere. Is that the kind of thing?

Tom Stepleton Feb 22

@GypsumFantastic yes, that's just the kind of thing I'm looking for, especially if they are cheaper, lower-quality disks that are harder to recover! But to stress, I'm looking for disks to use for practice as I develop my technique, so while I would do my best, there's a chance that any data sent my way would be lost forever...

Gypsum Fantastic Feb 22

@stepleton Yeah I was going to throw them out. They're all yours. I think a lot of them are originals from the software publishers. I'm in Yorkshire so dropping them off in person isn't really going to happen but postage shouldn't be too much.

Gypsum Fantastic Feb 22

@stepleton They're not quite how I remembered. A few originals (education software) but mostly handwritten labels.

Tom Stepleton Feb 22

@GypsumFantastic Now that looks like training material, and quite a few more than 50 disks. I'll DM you an address.

My approach will be to sort them by manufacturer and type and then try them one by one. I'd like to develop some familiarity with the kinds of behaviour to expect from different makes of disk.

Archivist Liz Feb 22

@stepleton If you're not already familiar with it, you should check out the work @makethecatwise is doing on Floppies!

Tom Stepleton Feb 23

@archivist_Liz @makethecatwise Thanks, we are in touch!