Warped or bent floppies

From: David C. Jenner <djenner_at_halcyon.com>
Date: Sat Dec 12 20:56:26 1998

I have a few floppies, both 8-inch and 5.25-inch, whose outer sleeves
have been warped or bent due to various reasons over the years.
Although it appears that the inner, flexible media are OK, I am
reluctant to try to read and copy these without taking some sort of
precautions.

When I try to manually rotate the inner media, it is either very
difficult or impossible without doing some harm to the floppy.
(Usually, you can do this manually with only a little effort.) I
worry that putting them into a drive may totally destroy the floppy.
Some of these floppies (especially the 8-inchers) are up to 20 years
old and contain what I now consider to be valuable material. I have
successfully read and copied other floppies of the same vintage (and
probably same origin) as these warped ones with no problems.

So, what do I do? Is it conceivable to open and remove the inner
media from the warped sleeves? Should I just try putting them under
a pile of books to see if the warps decrease? Any ideas or practical
experience with this would be greatly appreciated.

Just for reference, in case the particulars help any, the 8-inch
floppies are single-sided, single-density and were written on a
DEC RX01 or equivalent. Most of the 5.25-inch floppies were written
on an Apple II.

Thanks,
Dave
Received on Sat Dec 12 1998 - 20:56:26 GMT