[sebhc] Re-creating actual floppies from archive

[Lee Hart]

> By the same token there should be no reason to not just use a
> 1.44 [megabyte] disk.

I've found that 1.4meg disks and drives have terrible reliability. I
have scads of ancient 8" and 5.25" hard-sector disks and drives. They
work well, considering their age. But all of my 1.44meg disks and drives
are troublesome.

For example, I downloaded a copy of "Damn Small Linux" (yes, that's
their official name). It works great, but I wanted to install it on an
older PC that can't boot from a CDROM. Ok; there is a proceedure for
making a "boot floppy". But it requires a perfect 1.44meg disk, no bad
sectors, no read retries at all. I'll be damned if I can find a single
1.44meg floppy and drive that can do it! Out of 3 drives and several
dozen disks, every single one has at least one bad sector. I'll write
the Linux boot image, and it gets to 80%, 90%, even 99% once, and then
BANG "bad sector... aborted".
-- 
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget the perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in    --    Leonard Cohen
--
Lee A. Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, leeahart_at_earthlink.net
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