Free: Literally 1000 3.5" Floppy Disks

[CommanderCochrane]

I have literally 1000 floppy disks I bought off eBay sometime back with the intention of using them as blanks UNTIL I found out they contain:

A TON of Original Mod Files
Source Code (Some of which appears to be from IBM?)
A lot of stuff that to my (admittedly less than expert eye) seems to be constant with IBM Mainframe code.
Stuff from some old Scene groups (I think whoever owned these before me was involved with the old FaiRLiGHT)
Like 200 IBM Reference Disks (not sure how many are still good and contain there original data)
LOTS of early CAD stuff
LOTS of drivers.
LOTS of pagemaker files some of which appear to be explaining how some old file formats work? IRC logs between 2 engineers I believe
and other generally historically noteworthy stuff.

Quite a few of these disks are actually labeled IBM confidential and I suspect are protected by some mechanism that is beyond my capabilities to avoid.

The Catch: You have to archive every, single, disk and run ones that fail through a second drive to make sure there actually bad. Ones with bad sectors that still read I still expect images of even if they turn out to be of damaged disks via ignoring bad sectors and then send me the image files so that I can upload them to the Internet Archive for future preservation. You also must pay for shipping (probably 30-40 dollars).

You must show me that you have both the means and the time to image every single one of these disks. I'd prefer it if they go to someone with a reputation for reliability so that they don't just float off into the void. Your reward is a lifetime supply of 3.5" disks I guess. I think roughly 1/10 to 2/10ths of the disks have failed based on the ones I've tested. The main reason I'm giving them away is because I just can't archive them and I don't want the data on these lost forever. I'm doing this strictly for historical preservations sake. If there's enough people willing to do the work I may divide them up among up to 5 people.

 

[phunqe]

Hi, are we talking mixed 3.5 and 5.25 or only 3.5?

Cheers.

EDIT: Note to self, learn to read topic properly.

- - - Updated - - -

Well the project is actually quite intriguing. I like challenges.

I could imagine using a mix of "native" USB 3.5 floppies and USB to floppy interface ones to mix drives of different types. Since they are quite cheap you could setup 2 of each perhaps and write a program that tries to image a diskette as soon as it's entered.
Then basically:

1. Enter floppy in first drive.
2. If floppy is imaged and data verified, archive the floppy in "good pile".
3. If floppy is not imaged or data cannot be verified, move it to next drive.

Repeat 2-3 for each floppy until you've used the last drive (if it can't be read by last drive either, consider it lost) and start with a new one from 1 at every step.
If the program is made automatic, so it senses when you have entered a disk, this should be rather painless.
The only thing I am unsure of is if drives through a usb interface allow low level operations that certain utilities can manage to recover data (like raw sector reads etc).
However, I am currently building a 486 MS-DOS only box and adding a cheap extra floppy controller for a few extra floppies should not be a problem. Both can be found cheap on eBay.

I am however in Europe, but it is very intriguing. Let me brood on it for a little while

 

[rad]

That's very interesting! I remember when I was young how much I was searching for MOD files, Doom WAD levels and other interesting stuff, this before the Internet era when CD ROMs have just been available (around 95-96). I'm saying this just to make note how much I value all these stuff and how hard it was by that time to find anything new and different.

I've multiple 3,5 drivers as well as classic 486 (actually 5x86 cyrix @ 133) so you can count me in. Currently i have time to do that and upload them afterwards. Just have finished encoding my VHS collection of nearly 100 cassettes so I know very well what such projects is and how long it takes.

 

[Karm]

What about dividing it among 10 people? I would prefer it because than you just have to handle 100 disks instead of 200.
Or just see how many reliable persons react to this thread.
Would like to participate. Got 3 to 4 disk drives to test them on (one a ibm usb drive).
Just don't have enough space and time to test and archive 200 disks. 100 or even 150 should be okay, 200 is a little to much.
So if you find enough people, count me in!
Preferable would like to archive some drivers or scene group stuff, because if the disk isn't broken I would keep it like it is, without formatting the disks.

 

[retro-pc_user]

This'll be an interesting project to work on. I've archived floppies before since I have 1 diskette that acts up all of the time when I'm trying to install MS-DOS onto my Packard Bell, so I imaged 1 of my diskettes (drivers for the CD-ROM, and sound card) onto my other desktop, and burned another image onto that same diskette successfully.

I've multiple 3.5" diskette drives across 5 computers (as well as 1 5.25" diskette drive):
Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus (Epson dual FDD 3.5" and 5.25")
Custom AMD K6-2/300
Dell Dimension 4550 Teac brand
Custom Athlon 64 3000+ Teac brand
Dell Dimension E510

All of which, minus the Packard Bell, have adequate hard drive space, and internet connectivity. Count me in.

 

[mr_ppp]

I'd be interested in assisting with this, I've got a selection of drives (3" 3.5" and 5.25") I can hook up to a Supercard Pro I use for my own archiving. I've also got multiple PC's of varying vintages that could be used for testing the images - I have brand new blanks just for this purpose so copy protections can also be tested to have transferred succesfully

Whilst it would be time consuming, it would be fascinating to see what wonders are held on the disks and be able to preserve them for the future

I've been busy in the past buying up old disks and archiving the contents, in fact I've got some I need to upload myself somewhere from BBC's, PC's and Amiga!

Only downside is i'm based in the UK

 

[demolition]

I would love to do some work on this as I have the setup to properly dump floppies (i.e. Kryoflux and some good drives), however shipping something that heavy (and sensitive) across the pond is not a good idea unfortunately. :/

 

[Akira]

I have the will to do this and am US based, but I don't have a kryoflux ?