There is a saying...
If a magnet touches a floppy...
All data is gone.
Well, let's see if that's true.
For this experiment, I'll be using 3.5" High Density floppy disks.
Much like these two.
I'll also use a couple of different magnets, starting with this one, a Alnico horseshoe
magnet with a 1KG pull.
That means this magnet requires 1KG of force to pull away from a flat steel surface.
To test whether this magnet will affect data on a disk, I'll have to put data on this disk,
but first I'll need to format it.
Given the age of these floppies, some have deteriorated, so finding a disk which formats
without any bad sectors was quite tricky.
But after sorting through various contenders, I found 3 which were suitable.
For the purposes of this test, I'll be using 3 disks, one labelled Larry, one Barry and
one Gary.
The first disk, Larry, I'll fill with images.
This collection of wallpapers from the Windows 98 directory will do just fine, each one can
be previewed and indeed opened.
To fully verify the disk's integrity I'll also run a scan disk, which reveals there
are now 805,376 bytes in 20 files, leaving 652,288 available.
Disk Barry will have something a little different...
ZIP files.
Now I don't know about you, but whenever I had corrupted disks in the 90s, it always
used to be slap bang in the middle of a ZIP file.
Usually this meant whatever games I'd copied from my mate's computer, wouldn't load on
mine.
So here we have PAP.ZIP and CAR.ZIP.
Both of these ZIP files work perfectly, with PAP being Paperboy 2 and CAR being Grand Prix
Circuit, and although it doesn't appreciate running through the Windows 98 command, prompt,
it still loads.
Disk Gary, I'm just going to leave totally blank.
So, what am I trying to do with these tests?
Well, data is stored onto a thin piece of magnetic coated plastic in the floppy.
An energised write head can then orientates the north and south poles of tiny - often
iron - particles embedded on this surface, in order to create a readable pattern the
computer can interpret.
By putting a magnet in close proximity to these particles, we can literally disorientate
this pattern and corrupt the data.
Legend tells us this is possible, even with quite a weak magnet, or even if you place
your disks too close to your monitor, but I've put my disks through some pretty rough
times before, and mostly, they've been just fine.
Really, I just want to know how much magnetism the data can withstand, before it goes bye
bye.
So, in a very unscientific manner, I'll start with Larry, and just circle the magnet around
the disk, without making physical contact.
Next I'll pop the disk back in the drive, and see if the data is intact... and yes,
indeed, it's all there, everything is readable.
Time to move this up a notch.. this time, I'll make direct contact with the disk, and
try again.
Surprisingly, again, everything checks out just fine.
OK, so to do this properly, I need to move the magnet around and see if I can mis-align
those particles.
Really get stuck in there.
That should do it.
But nope, yet again, all the images are present, they're all readable, and even Scan disk returns
the same results as when I began.
The Alnico magnet hasn't even caused a single ounce of commotion.
So, those MEMES of someone magnetising their floppy to a fridge.
Well, actually, the data is probably just fine.
I even tried it myself, overnight with several magnets, and everything was still in place
the next day.
Apparently, we're going to need a stronger magnet.
That's where this little Neodymium magnet comes in handy.
As you can see from the packaging alone, this one packs a punch.
No kiddies allowed for this mother.
Now, Neodymium creates the most powerful magnets per unit volume, and are often referred to
as Rare Earth Magnets.
This particular one has a pull of 32.2KG.
More than enough to disrupt a few particles I reckon.
Barry is the disk nominated to take the brunt of this one.
I thought I'd first do a quick check with the Alnico magnet, and yep, everything was
fine.
You can see the difference between these two by measuring how far away each magnet can
attract this little bulldog clip.
The Alnico needs to be 2cm away (which is just under an inch), wheres Neodymium can
spread it's attractive force over 6.5cm (or just under 3 inches).
So first, I'll do the non touching circling around Barry, which actually, again does nothing.
The ZIP files check out, and the games are playable.
Alright Barry, you've had your fun.
How about I just wang this magnet straight onto you.
See how you cope with that.
Now straight away, the floppy drive took longer to read Barry, but on first glance, all looks
well.
However, trying to unzip the files is a different matter.
Almost immediately PAP.ZIP returns a "Read Fault Error", and a Scan Disk returns more
errors than you could shake a stick collective at.
The saving grace here is that I'm still able to reformat the disk without trouble.
So the data may be gone, but the media lives on.
Larry suffers a similar fate here.
Some of the images are fine, but some refuse to load, and again Scan Disk presents many
an error.
So Gary, what do we do with you Gary?
Well, I thought I'd give it a good seeing to with the strong magnet, which indeed did
upset it's formatting, but like the other disks, could be re-formatted no problem.
So I decided to get silly.
I grabby a silver marker and rubbed it all over the disk surface to see if it would cause
issues, and from the off, you could hear there were problems.
The drive couldn't even tell it was formatted anymore, and even worse, couldn't re-format
it either.
So I guess we're left with the following conclusion;
Never put strong magnets on your floppy disks, and although weak ones may be ok, it's probably
best not to risk it.
But under no circumstances what-so-ever, should you act like a silly "twonk" and rub permanent
marker all over the floppy surface, damaging both the disk, and more than likely your floppy
drive as well.
That concludes today's lesson, thanks for watching.
If you want more click here.
You can also subscribe and support me if you want to stay really ahead of the crowd.
In any case, have a great evening!