i have some but they have windows 1.01 on them. never got around to messing with them yet, so i am unable to offer them; just sort of fun. On Sun, Apr 20, 2014 at 3:58 PM, Jason Wright <jasonwright365 at gmail.com>wrote: > I do not know the density of the hard drives. I believe that most are high > density- they come from computers that also have cdrom drives- relatively > newer by comparison to when 3.5 in drives came out. They come from desktop > and laptop computers. I assume that all the drives work, but will not test > them. > > If a trade is not possible, i can also sell them for $5 each (including > shipping). If any are found not working or not high density, I will refund > the prorated price. > > I recycle and refurbish computers... if I can sell good parts for reuse, > I'll give a fair deal. > > Thanks, > Jason > On Apr 20, 2014 12:47 PM, "Doug Reed" <n0nas at amsat.org> wrote: > >> Hi Mr B-o-B! >> >> You didn't say what kind of drives you are looking for; 3.5" high >> density, 3.5" standard density, 5.25" high density, 5.25" standard >> density 80 track or 40 track, double sided or single sided, or 8" high >> density, low density, hard sector, soft sector, or Vydeck. >> >> I will say that if this is for a disk duplication project where you >> will be using 3.5" or 5.25" HD drives, you have the best chance of >> success. If you are doing anything that requires making both 5.25" HD >> disks and 5.25" 360K low density disks, you should plan to have two >> sets of 5.25" drives because the track read-write width was different >> between 360K low density 40 track and 1.2MB high density 80 track. >> >> Chances are good you will not be using 8" drives, but if you do, there >> used to be software that would let you read 8" drives on your PC if >> you made your own control cable. It has been too many years to >> remember now but I know there was something about the old PC floppy >> disk controllers that made me buy a special controller card to get >> full capability for reading odd disk formats. Linux might even be the >> ideal OS for this kind of work since you can probably do anything you >> want with the right drivers. >> >> The final recommendation would be that you consider your options for >> proving the drives are good. I know that I've had good drives and bad >> drives over the years. Good drives usually had a bit better read-write >> head and electronics that gave a bit more margin on read. Bad drives >> had less margin and tended to give more read errors with marginal >> floppy disks, particularly when you get into high density media. >> >> And if you have 8 random drives from different vendors and manufacture >> dates, you probably have 8 drives with different physical alignment of >> the heads and no two the same. This tends to show up as difficulty >> reading a test disk, particularly on the inner tracks where data bits >> are packed the tightest on the media. I used to test my PC drives by >> formatting disks on each of them, then doing a surface scan of the >> disks as I swapped them between the other drives. Then I'd try to make >> sense of which drives had read errors on which floppies. The "keeper" >> drives were the ones that had no errors reading each other's disks >> since I could reasonably assume they had similar alignment and good >> read margin. >> >> 30 years ago in the TRS-80 days, I had 3.5", 5.25", and 8" floppy >> drive alignment disks where I worked and I frequently aligned the >> floppy drives when they were returned to the shop. I haven't seen >> anyone selling alignment disks for along time now, and since 3.5" and >> 5.25" drives are common as sand, I don't know that I'd bother with it >> today. Easier just to get a couple more drives and test them as above. >> >> And if you are duplicating floppies, be sure to pay attention to >> getting quality media. The cheaper disks are usually cheaper for a >> reason. Anyone who fought with 5.25" HD media knows that very well. >> The worst media I ever saw was at a three letter government agency and >> came from the lowest bidder. When you held it to the light and looked >> at the shiny surface, it looked like it had freckles. Each freckle was >> a high spot on the media that had been scraped off when the head went >> by and coated the read head like frost on your windshield on a cold >> winter morning. The build-up on the head reduced read margin until the >> drive couldn't read anything! >> >> If you can't collect enough old drives from the TClug list, you might >> want to put a Want on Craig's List or simply pick up some of the >> Free-haul-it-away computers on the list. Worst case I can give you the >> email address for a guy who scraps old computers as his business, but >> he might be the worst place to look since most of his scrap comes from >> companies that got rid of 5.25" drives 15-20 years ago. >> >> <www.twinslan.net> >> If none of the above pans out, your last option might be the local >> hamfest (electronic swap meet, flea market) on June 7 in St Paul near >> 3M Center. You'd have a pretty good chance of collecting a dozen >> drives out there, although 5" drives are getting pretty old even for >> hams...... I gave half a dozen old computers and drives to the >> scrapper last fall. I might have a few more drives if I look and knew >> what you wanted. :-) >> >> Doug Reed. >> >> >> On 4/20/14, tclug-list-request at mn-linux.org >> <tclug-list-request at mn-linux.org> wrote: >> > Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2014 00:58:53 -0500 >> > From: B-o-B De Mars <mr.chew.baka at gmail.com> >> > To: TCLUG <tclug-list at mn-linux.org> >> > Subject: [tclug-list] Need 8 floppy drives >> > >> > I am in need of as many old floppy drives that I can get my hands on. >> > The magic # I am looking for is 8, but would be interested in more. >> > I will give cash, or trade. >> > If anyone still has a pile of these drives collecting dust let me know. >> > Thanks! >> > >> > Mr. B-o-B >> _______________________________________________ >> TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota >> tclug-list at mn-linux.org >> http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >> > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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