On Wed, 30 Jul 2008, Josh Paetzel wrote: > Unfortunately digital recordings don't tolerate degradation at all. A > single bit error is enough to make a binary file unusable....whereas you > can lose a vast amount of analog information and still make out what > song you're listening to. I'm not sure that's true. I think it depends on the type of file and type of error. Text files can tolerate tons of errors and still be readable, but if they are programs, one error *might* make the file unusable. > There are tape mediums that have shelf lives in the 30 year range, > unfortunately floppies were not designed to have a long shelf life. I > believe I was testing 5.25" floppies in 1998 when I was preparing to > move from Michigan to Minnesota. They had been stored in a cool dry > dark place and were for the most part all junk. I think they were about > 6 years old at that point. I know that I've had a lot better luck than that! I'll get out the old disks and see how they do. Maybe yours were stored in a cool, dry, dark place on top of an electromagnet. Or maybe your disk drive was the problem. Mike