The life of floppy discs?

[Skykid]

I was always under the impression floppy discs were easy to kill or demagnetise (or whatever.) Just wondering how long Famicom Disks (which don't even have a covering shield) are meant to last. I have a few games for the format but nothing to test them on at the moment.

Has anyone else experienced floppy disc death (game related) on the FC disc or X68000 formats?

Thanks for the input.

[Fudoh]

despite their physical inferiority I found 5.25" floppies to be much more durable than their 3.5" counterparts. I really have to think hard to remember any defective C64 floppy or DOS game from the late 80s to early 90s, while I've run literally into hundreds of defective 3.5" disks from the mid-90s.

[Skykid]

despite their physical inferiority I found 5.25" floppies to be much more durable than their 3.5" counterparts. I really have to think hard to remember any defective C64 floppy or DOS game from the late 80s to early 90s, while I've run literally into hundreds of defective 3.5" disks from the mid-90s.

The reason I ask is I was having a chat with a friend who used to program for the Amiga, and he was telling me about the nightmare times he would lose data from randomly corrupted floppy discs. Famicom Disks don't even have covers! From the wiki:

"In addition, the disks themselves must be tested and verified to work on both sides, as the FDS disks′ construction can allow dirt to get into the disk, or even for the disk to demagnetize over time. Even one bad sector on a disk will render it unplayable. In an effort to save money on production, Nintendo opted to not use disk shutters (a feature seen on 3.5 in (89 mm) floppy disks) to keep dirt out, instead opting to include wax paper sleeves as with the older 5.25 in (133 mm) disks. The only exception to this were certain games that were specially released on blue disks (which did have shutters)."

So I was really just wondering if anyone had found their FC Disks to be corrupted unrecoverably?

[BuckoA51]

A bunch of my C64 5.25 floppies (original games) had died the last time I checked!

[Ex-Cyber]

My understanding is that magnetic media on the whole tends to be pretty reliable iff treated like a holy relic (handled carefully, kept clean, stored in a controlled climate, etc.). If you expect to actually use it regularly and store it in the real world, all bets are off. Floppy drives generally work by actually having the head touching the spinning disk, which is naturally a recipe for disaster.

IIRC, C64 has the added issue of the drive heads tending to go out of alignment (at least on the 1541, probably because of the ridiculous method of seeking to track 0), so you can have a drive that can write and read back a disk fine, but a disk written "properly" will appear to be blank/corrupted.

[gray117]

Magnetic stuff =

Don't leave your phone on them.

[Skykid]

God, these Famicom Disks are going to be dead as a dodo by the time I ever pick up a unit to try them.

And there was me looking forward to some Akumajo Dracula action.

[Ghegs]

This is why my Famicom collection is and stays FDS free. A system and games that both break down when you look at them angrily enough has no place next to the ever-lasting FC and its carts.

@Skykid
You're in luck, Akumajo Dracula was re-released as a Famicom cart. It's a tad on the expensive side, though...

[Skykid]

This is why my Famicom collection is and stays FDS free. A system and games that both break down when you look at them angrily enough has no place next to the ever-lasting FC and its carts.

@Skykid
You're in luck, Akumajo Dracula was re-released as a Famicom cart. It's a tad on the expensive side, though...

I know, that's the problem.