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[Ed: Recently in comp.misc, users started describing how they had put floppies through their paces, and yet still found them readable. Some folks decided the discussion got out of hand, and I enjoyed this one. ]

That reminds me of the time, a few years ago when I left home with my 5" master floppy in my pocket. Suddenly a gust of wind blew it into the road where it was run over by a passing military parade and it ended up in a patch of quick-drying cement.

When I retrieved it the cement had set so I took it home to recover as I'd lost the backup some days previously. I chiselled off the cement from the disc but then my friend came along and suggested that, as the disc was 'dead', we should see how much damage it could take.

We nailed it to the ceiling, and hung the cat from it, then used it as a dart board, incidentally did you know that if you're a good aim, a dart will exactly fit through the index hole? By now the disc was a little bit grubby so we carefully opened the black jacket, removed the disc and washed it in boiling water, making good use of the brillo pads. After drying it with my blowtorch I tried it in my disc drive.

Nothing happened for a few seconds and then a wisp of smoke slowly rose from the slot. Grabbing the disc and stamping out the flames I realised I had placed it in my toaster instead of a drive. I found a 3" drive but unfortunately the disc wouldn't fit so I had to cut off the edges until it did. Tentatively I tried to boot and...

Imagine my surprise when it worked! all my files were readable, except for the ones stored in the bits I cut off to make it fit the drive.

This really happened. I concluded that it only went to show.

Has this happened to anyone else?

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