Feed the nerd: 100 disks for nothing at all

Martin Jud

19.6.2018

Translation: Eva Francis

Oops, I did it again. And now I feel bad. I cheated on digitec to get myself a 486 computer and now I did it again to pick up what looked like a once-in-a-lifetime bargain: one hundred 3.5″ disks for 30 francs. But now it looks like this was a bad choice.

Let’s start at the beginning. You might have read about how I fulfilled my dream, well a tiny one of them. A 486 computer is currently making its way from Italy to my doorstep.

And now I’m waiting impatiently and hungering for this retro feeling to come over me again. In my anticipation, I’m thinking about the software for this computer – the top computer of the year 1995. So I go ahead and get myself 100 floppy disks from a classified ad website.

Luckily, I did backups of my DOS software collection and various operating systems in the early 2000s. Most original floppy disks don't work properly anymore. Unsurprisingly so; other than hard disks, the magnetic head of floppy disks rubs directly against the magnetisable surface, which causes significant abrasion. On top of that, direct sunlight, heat and magnetic interference are risks that should not be underestimated and that make it difficult to store disks for long periods of time.

I need at least four floppy disks for MS DOS 6.22 (one boot disk and three installation media) to set up the notebook from scratch. Installing Windows 3.11 takes another nine floppies. The first version of Windows 95 fits on 14 disks. Games such as Lands of Lore need about eight... To cut a long story short: I'll need a lot of disks. The pack of 100 that I ordered should do the job.

What are disks worth if you can’t write anything onto them? Exactly. So I didn’t hesitate long and got myself this product:[[productlist:219704]]

Damaged sectors all over the place

The disks I bought came in their sealed original packaging that said «100% error free» and «formatted for IBM». Sounds promising. But my first attempt at accessing or copying onto a floppy disk failed miserably and made me suspect the worst.

Was I being pessimistic? Not at all. None of the disks seemed to be working – at least none from the first pack of ten. I must have bought useless crap. But I’m not the type to give up fast. Sure, I could have ordered decent disks directly from digitec.

Optical discs

EUR21,49

MediaRange MR200 Floppy Disks 3.5"

10 x

15

But I wasn’t going to admit defeat that soon. Plus, isn’t charging 1.62 francs for 1.44 MB just exorbitant? Having said that, I guess in view of the very few manufacturers of today, it might be a fair price after all. But let’s wait and see; I might be able to rescue one or the other disk.

100 x «format a:»

Anyone who remembers the good old floppy disks knows how long it takes to format one – about 125 seconds. However, if there are damaged sectors, the process may take longer. At least the sound, the regular ticking of the drive, is rather calming and brings back memories of past days. In my case, the floppy disk drive was ticking for almost four hours before all floppy disks were formatted.

What I was left with? Nine disks that didn’t have any damaged sectors. That’s 3.33 francs per disk – or 2.31 francs per MB.

That's a hell of a lot compared to today's storage media. The «Samsung 860 EVO Basic», a 500 GB SSD, costs around 150 francs. That's 0.029 rappen per MB.

91 x Norton Disk Doctor?

Norton's good old Disk Doctor helped me save quite a few floppy disks back in the 90s. However, this only works if the sectors have no physical damage, scratches or the such. And even then you have to be lucky.

I'd originally planned to go into a second round with all 91 remaining defective floppy disks, but then decided that would take things too far. My inner nerd was satisfied for the moment and I couldn't face a second disk formatting session.

It was only a pleasure deferred – but I had enough for then and settled for the nine working disks I had. But I won’t give up on the other 91. Never!

For now, I put away my floppies. I might get back to them in a follow-up article of the «Feed the Nerd» series. If my laptop makes it past the Italian-Swiss border and arrives at my house in one piece, you’ll read about it in the digitec magazine. If it doesn’t, I’ll take unpaid leave and feel sorry for myself for a while.

Martin Jud

Senior Editor

martin.jud@digitecgalaxus.ch

I find my muse in everything. When I don’t, I draw inspiration from daydreaming. After all, if you dream, you don’t sleep through life.