Need help *fast*

Joshua Tinnin krinklyfig at spymac.com
Mon Dec 27 21:02:32 PST 2004


On Monday 27 December 2004 08:19 pm, "Ted Mittelstaedt" 
<tedm at toybox.placo.com> wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Nikolas
> > Britton Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 7:08 PM
> > To: Broder Mizzérable
> > Cc: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> > Subject: Re: Need help *fast*
> >
> > Broder Mizzérable wrote:
> > > Hello there.. i'm switching to FreeBSD ' now '... i did try to
> > > use the floppy installation way. but it seems like all my
> > > floppy's are 50kb to small =/ ... so i was wondering .. is it
> > > possible to use a CD ' That does already has stuffs on it but
> > > still boot it and download FTP wise .. as you would do as on the
> > > floppy installation ... i do ask this cuz i dont have any free
> > > CD's atm ..
> >
> > I'm not quite following what you mean? You tried the standard tools
> > to make the floppy's, like rawrite and dd? AND you did format these
> > disk before hand to check that they didn't have bad sectors?.... I
> > have a big box of floppy's that have been siting in the closet and
> > every time I need one I have to go through 20 or so bad ones that
> > have bad sectors or invalid media to find the one perfect one.
> > floppy diskettes are junk thats why we stopped using them.
>
> No, floppy diskettes are definitely not junk, there is nothing wrong
> with the medium except that it doesen't hold enough.
>
> I used to work at a large software developer, Symantec formerly
> Central Point Software (ie: PCTools)  The last floppy runs of PCTools
> had at least 20 5.25 diskettes and about 15 3.5 floppies and Central
> Point did their own duplicating.  There was no way in hell that
> floppies that were anywhere near as bad as you imply could have been
> used for commercial duplication, the reject rate would have been too
> high.
>
> The problem today is that the floppy diskettes you buy in the
> store today are not manufactured under the high tolerances that
> they are supposed to be, and the floppy disk drives are also
> slopped together.  I don't know how the commercial duplicators
> do it if any are still doing floppy runs, probably none are
> anymore.  My guess is the few people still manufacturing them are
> using old ratty equipment that probably should have been retired
> years ago.

This would be consistent with my experience. I'd estimate that upwards 
of 95% of the 5.25" floppies I bought in the '80s (mostly Elephant) 
lasted for five years or more, most more than ten, last time I checked, 
and they may still be working, though my old Apple IIe was donated to 
the public school system in the mid '90s (I still miss it). Contrast 
this with my experience buying 3.5" floppies over the last ten years or 
so. The failure rate was as high as 20% when I was first buying those 
around '95 or so, much higher than the 5.25" floppies I bought in the 
past, but the better brands were about as good as I remember the old 
ones. But as time went on and home CD burners became a reality then 
became cheaper, 3.5" floppies got worse and worse. Even with a good 
brand, something like 30-50% of my 3.5" floppies fail within a year (as 
many as 10% are bad right out of the box), and 80%+ after a few years. 
At least they're cheap enough to where it's not that big of a deal 
financially, and if you're using a relatively modern OS then not that 
much can be stored on them anymore anyway, but it's frustrating to use 
a storage medium with such a high failure rate. All of this is 
anecdotal, so my figures don't mean anything but to me, but I know it's 
not isolated.

- jt


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