Many computer users who are accustomed to hard disks in computers are not very familiar with a floppy disk.
Floppy Disks – Past and Present
Probably, they are more familiar with the term ‘diskette.’ The word ‘Floppy disk’ has been replaced by this term, the suffix ‘ette’ meaning ‘a little one.’
This data storage device invented in 1969 by IBM enjoyed a long life (spanning over a decade) unchallenged by any other storage media. Many are not aware of the original 8-inch devices, for floppies became commercially popular in their 5.25-inch version in the mid 70s. (The new invention was meant to eradicate the property of asymmetric expansion by humidity in the older model.)
Data in a floppy is held on a thin circular magnetic film that’s placed inside a square or rectangular jacket. The thin plastic coated magnetic material is shaped like a disk and the tracks on it are arranged in concentric rings. This enables the software to jump from one file to the other, enabling direct access to information, which is written and read using the floppy disk drive, initialised ‘FDD.’
The 5.25” floppy disk held about 1.2MB of data. With successive innovations, the size of the floppies turned smaller. The device introduced next measured just 3.5 inches, with a higher storage capacity. Low density floppies in this variant, could hold 744 KB of data as they used only one side of the internal magnetic Mylar (a strong thin polyester film) for recording data. High density floppies that used both the sides had doubled the capacity and they could hold 1.44 MB.
The data storage capacities of the floppies were successively increased and floppies holding 2.88 MB and even 120 MB and 240 MB were later introduced. However, these alternatives failed for the former had too little data retention capacity while the later was an unreliable storage media.
Before hard drives emerged on the scene, floppy disks were used to store the operating system application software and other data. Later, this media was used for transferring data between computers.
Data Loss and Its Recovery from a Floppy
Since the advent of internet, transferring data via e-mail has become more feasible. Floppies are fast turning obsolete, a fact that can be proved by the absence of a floppy drive in the modern day laptops.
However, some people still use them for holding small files or even for transferring of information. This storage media has to be carefully handled to prevent data damage.
- They should be transported placed sideways and stacked one next to the other and not one over the other.
- They should be kept away from magnetic fields, for the floppy disk is made from a thin piece of plastic that is coated with iron oxide which is a ferromagnetic material. One usually overlooked source of magnetism is the mobile phone. One single electromagnetic radiation pulse from the mobile phone is enough to destroy the data on a floppy.
- Removing the disk from the drive while it is still in use also damages the data it contains.
- Floppy disks can also get affected by dust, extremes of temperature, smoke, condensation or other pollutants, despite their protective covering.
The general problems that occur in a floppy disk are the production of unusual noises while trying to access data, the non-formatting of drive A in the floppy, the computer being unable to recognise the device, or the display of error messages.
When such problems occur, lost data from a floppy can be recovered using the ‘Do it yourself’ data recovery software. This tool can be downloaded from the internet and it successfully recovers the lost files, provided the data has not been overwritten.
Before using the DIY recovery software, it is better to disk image the floppy. That is creating a mirror image of the floppy in the form of a file (provided there is enough space on the hard drive). If some error occurs while retrieving data, the disk image proves valuable.
The floppy disks can also be shipped to the data recovery service providers. Their expertise enables successful recovery in majority of the cases. In spite of their fragile nature, which leads to data damage, floppies are still preferred by some users for they are inexpensive and portable.
