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
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> tclug-list at mn-linux.org
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