I get an error with over 3 of 10 new floppy discs (from about 5 months ago) when trying to format them. I can read, and write to them.

I need to get Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics on the floppy. But over 7 of them (the ones that format perfectly) give me an error that the write protection tab needs to be closed (which it is.)

The ones that I cannot format (the 3 that I was talking about earlier) work perfectly with the Lifeguard tools. BUT when I try booting with them, it gives me ranging errors from "Cannot load DOS" to "Failed to load IBMDOS.COM, System Halted"

I tried to burn it to a CD, which burned successfully with no problem. but when I try to boot up with it, it then gives "Failed to load the license agreement file WDLice.txt, Please make sure it is loaded in the same directory as WDDIAG.EXE" When I look on the disc it's located on there. Same thing with the floppy, I found the IBMDOS.COM located on the diskette.


I am having severe problems with my hard drives right now. Something’s wrong with a corrupt volume or something (forget the error that showed up when running the repair console for vista)

I can't run the WDDLGD on windows, not only because it freezes due to something wrong with my drive, but when I tried to have it repair what it found, it couldn't because it can't lock the drive.

Any who... Keep in mind I've tried formatting the discs on other computers, same story.

The floppies can't be bad... I barely use them and I got them like a few months ago, they are Sony's.

Any idea's what might be wrong?
Quote from: Alkamar on May 18, 2008, 11:48:25 PM

Any ideas what might be wrong?

They were stored in the room that our swamp cooler is in...

In the United States, small-scale evaporative coolers are called swamp coolers by some users due to the humid air conditions produced.

The glue, called the "binder," that holds the magnetic particles in place can be easily damaged from high levels of heat and humidity.

In tapes, soft sticky binder can glue the tape together, and gum up the PLAYER. In floppies, it prevents the platter from spinning.

Temperature and humidity play a major role in the destruction of magnetic media.

Extremely high humidity can warp the platter inside a floppy and stretch of video or audio tapes. Changes in temperature and humidity can cause condensation inside the cassette box or disk. It will also cause the materials from which the tape or disk is made to expand and contract, which they will do at different rates. This expansion and contraction can cause the entire unit to warp.

Humidity is the most dangerous environmental factor. Water is the agent of the main chemical deterioration process of polymers: HYDROLYSIS. Additionally, high humidity values (above 65%) encourage fungus growth, which literally eats up the pigment layer of magnetic tapes and floppy disks and also disturbs, if not prevents, proper reading of information.

2-stage coolers cool air with a relative humidity between 50% and 70%, depending on the climate, compared to a traditional system that produces about 80% relative humidity air.