>I wasn't the original poster on this one, but... >I'm surprised to hear that these disks are expected to fail at this point. >I guess it has been 20 years since I looked at some of my old disks but I >was thinking I could copy some of the files off of them, copy them to my >HDD and toss the disks in the trash I believe storage is the key. The magnetic domains should be good to the Curie point (768°C for iron) but hot, humid conditions affects the support medium, turning it into a gooey mess. I recall a spot on NPR about a steam pipe breaking at the Smithsonian and the resulting loss of irreplaceable jazz recordings. I have cassette tapes that are over 20 years old and still play. Of course analog recordings may degrade more gracefully than digital. If the original poster can find a 5.25" floppy drive, I would be interested to know if the data transfer is successful.