Taking Care of Your Floppy Disks

The following document contains some helpful hints for avoiding disk problems.

Always remember to keep a backup copy of your file so that if something does happen to your disk, you can easily replace it with a backup.

The following precautions will reduce your risk of problems with floppy disks:

  1. Always treat the disk gently. Do not drop, bend, or treat the disk harshly.
  2. When labeling disks, write the label before you stick it on the disk. If you have to write on an already labeled disk, use only a soft tip pen and write gently.
  3. Never touch or expose the media surface of the disk. That is, make sure that the metal dust cover stays in position whenever it is not in the drive.
  4. When transporting disks, place them in a disk carrying case or some kind of hard protective cover.
  5. When storing disks, always keep them away from anything that might generate a magnetic field (e.g., speakers, electric motors, etc.).
  6. Before you eject your disk from the computer, make sure that the computer has stopped accessing it.
  7. If you have any problems with a disk, try running ScanDisk (PC) or Disk First Aid (Mac) on it, but remember, floppies are cheap. It is a lot less trouble to replace a $1 floppy disk than it is to rewrite a paper.