Floppy disk problems I tend to go back and forth around here with floppie disks, inserting them into this computer and then another. Over past year or so now, I have been getting numerous errors from their use. After running Scandisk, the floppys come up with a whole bunch of bad sectors, or bad track Zero, thus unuseable. I replaced the 3.5" drives in every computer around here with new units in the spring, and new disks. However, it gets to be hit and miss as to if the data written to any of the disks can then be taken across town and read on someone else's computer. Only solution so far has been to copy the critical files to 2 or 3 floppy disks and then drive over to the place they are to be used, hoping at least one will read good once there. Odd, in that I can read/write data to a floppy for a week or two. Then I run Scandisk or Checkit, and they no longer will accept data. CD-ROM is not a possibility, as one of the computers I have to access is still running DOS 6.2 and has no such drive. Are there any floppy disk data checking systems out there other than Scandisk? I have a trashcan with numerous disks inside. Wm.

How about finding a cheap old parallel port zip drive? I've used one for years without failure. Or do some networking? You can find old isa 10mb network cards about anywhere for cheap or free. How possibly old of a computer do you have with dos that doesn't have the possibility of a cd rom? I have an old cd rom that connects via parallel port too. It will even work on some ancient 286's with oddball hard drives and expansion slots. Or you will just have to find a good quality floppy disk which are becoming far and few.

Attaching something to the computer or some sort of network isn't even considered, as the floppys are received from others, and I have to interchange with others about two days per week. So far this is our only way to transferr data on non-compatible operating systems. About once per month have to mail a disk to someone in Canada too. Need to get more perfect floppy results, instead of replacing everything so often. Wm.

The heads on floppy drives have to be aligned by a human. There is going to be differences in alignment, either by poor initial alignment or changes caused by wear and tear. That sounds like your problem to me.

Hi I believe it is the diskette media, but I'll run through a couple of other relevant thoughts as well. To test for floppy drives to see if they have head alignment problems, I suggest you use tuff-test lite. It is a diagnostic, the cutback version is free. It has a good floppy drive test amongst other things. Use a known good floppy drive (verified or new) to create the diagnostic, and you can go and test other floppy drives. Some people tend to blame the new cheaper floppy drives. To some extent it would play a role, but does nothing to explain why some floppies seems to last (very durable), especially diskettes supplied with various products (eg driver disketts) I don't know how often diskette failure is caused, when the diskette isn't centered properly. Really I think the centering on the 3.5 diskette isn't all that bad (well I can only say that about the ones I've used) so it shouldn'tbe much of an issue. Sad diskette media happens to be one of my pet hates. In a situation where a functional floppy drive is unable to read a floppy it created weeks earlier, there are a couple of possibilities. One is - you're unlucky enough to have a climate that allows a organic growth to colonise part of the media surface. The second is the cause of a majority of problems, which is substandard diskette media. The same sort of problems were experienced by those who used to use the 5.25 diskettes, when low density diskettes (360K) were used instead of High density diskettes in high density (1.2M) drives. Data longivity was said to be shortened. Getting back to driver floppies. I always suspected somethong, but assumed companies like Epson had access to high quality media. I'd expect the company supplying diskettes to be "very careful", and screen out any inferior diskettes. In a batch you would buy there would be small number that would be just as durable. For me the penny dropped when I came apon a niffty little program that enables you to test diskettes for distribution purposes. This is what would probably suit you - it scans and verifies good quality media suitable for distribution I'm sorry, but I can not remember the name of the program, but google may offer some help in that area. I'd also like to point out, it was my experience the media available when 1.44M 3.5 disketes came out and for a few years afterwards, had little problem. I didn't really notice a performance problem until the mid Nineties.

Hi I found the program after some searching. May you enjoy its use. It'll be interesting out of a box of 50 how many are "really" defect free. Simtel msdos tools Bookcase link "Download: bdformat.zip (Jun 18 1997, 64.5K) Description: The Better Disk Formatter formats disks for distribution use. Ideal for people who distribute software on diskettes. If any media defect is recognized, the disk is rejected. It formats a disk using BIOS routines and gives more detailed explanations for errors. Special requirements: Real Mode DOS (doesn't work in Windows 95, only in DOS Mode)."