No. I recommend throwing out the diskettes. They are so cheap that trying to fix them (which is pointless) is a waste of time IMO. 😀 Have fun!

I know its pretty much pointless, but still, id like to give it a try.
Diskettes are pretty expensive here as of now, and rare to find. But due to my recent purchase at the flea market I'm good for a few years 😀

There is nothing pointless about better data recovery.

Isn't data recovery already on a high level with RAID 5/6 and stuff?

You maybe could try badcopy ?

http://www.jufsoft.com/badcopy/

If you can put them in a windows machine you can probably get the stuff off with unstoppable copier http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=29

If you just want to reuse them then a regular format will mark those sectors bad

His question is about re-using the diskettes. Not about data recovery. Using diskettes that already have bad sectors is a bad idea. Very often more bad sectors will develop. IMO.

PeterLI wrote:

His question is about re-using the diskettes. Not about data recovery. Using diskettes that already have bad sectors is a bad idea. Very often more bad sectors will develop. IMO.

Stojke wrote:

Is there any good software that can fix bad sectors on a floppy? That are not caused by physical damage such as scratches of course.
I have two Verbatim DataLife Plus floppies that have around 5kB bad sectors, would be a shame for them to go to waste.

Why would you recover a floppy disk with bad sectors and no software on it??

I only would recover the floppy if there is software on it, that may be important for you.

Robin4 wrote:

Why would you recover a floppy disk with bad sectors and no software on it?? […]
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PeterLI wrote:

His question is about re-using the diskettes. Not about data recovery. Using diskettes that already have bad sectors is a bad idea. Very often more bad sectors will develop. IMO.

Stojke wrote:

Is there any good software that can fix bad sectors on a floppy? That are not caused by physical damage such as scratches of course.
I have two Verbatim DataLife Plus floppies that have around 5kB bad sectors, would be a shame for them to go to waste.

Why would you recover a floppy disk with bad sectors and no software on it??

I only would recover the floppy if there is software on it, that may be important for you.

I think the idea here is "Can damaged floppy disks be repaired so that they can be reused like a new and healty floppy, hence not having to buy new ones". I don't think data recovery was an issue at all.
A damaged floppy is damaged though. Bad sectors can't be "fixed". On a HDD, they can be tagged so as not to be used by the system, but as soon as you start getting bad sectors, you can be almost certain that they'll multiply and eventually the HDD will be useless. They still manufacture floppies though, and with a bit of searching, you can find shops that sell brand new ones. They might not be super cheap, but it's worth having a few. And you'll never want to use a floppy for permanent storage of important files. Put them on a USB memory stick and a HDD somewhere.

Then i should just trowing them in the garbage.. not wasting time on bad sectored media.

On a HDD, they can be tagged so as not to be used by the system

It works on floppies too. You need to run a full format (not quick format)
but it will mark the bad sectors bad.

It may or may not get worse but certainly don't use it for anything important

I always thought that there were programs to try and fix bad sectors on a floppy, since it was a master medium and all 😀

As far as I know, bad sectors on floppies tend to be caused by the magnetic field on the floppy being out of operating spec in certain areas. If this happens, it can't be fixed through regular means, and fixing it would probably be as expensive as making a new floppy, at least more or less. It could also be caused by physical wear and tear to the disk surface. Even with unused disks, if they've been in storage for a very long time, the magnetic field will eventually deteriorate (grow weaker) and they'll stop working properly.
Floppies are for short term storage, and when worn out/damage become suitable for nothing other than making "disk munks".

Diskettes are still as common as sand on a beach. At least in most of the EU and especially the US. Craigslist, Bonanza, eBay and Amazon are flooded with them. 🤣

smeezekitty wrote:

It works on floppies too. You need to run a full format (not quick format) but it will mark the bad sectors bad. […]
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On a HDD, they can be tagged so as not to be used by the system

It works on floppies too. You need to run a full format (not quick format)
but it will mark the bad sectors bad.

It may or may not get worse but certainly don't use it for anything important

^^ THIS. Reformat, if it loses more usable sectors, toss.

That said, there are utilities that can realign floppy drives when they are out of alignment or something. I used one designed for 5.25" drive era on a 3.5" drive once and I think I damaged it maybe... Don't remember much about this but these utilities are mentioned in the Upgrading and Repairing PCs books.

A full surface scan in chkdsk, dosfsck or scandisk should work. Though with floppies I've noticed that, once you have one bad sector, more will follow soon.

Most floppies are salvageable.
Soft errors and misaligned track writing due to miscalibrated drives, do not blame the floppy's

Use Spinrite for sure, it can rejuvinate the sectors, i know from experience.
But use a good calibrated fdd drive.

Yeah I wouldn't even bother. I've found 3 sealed boxes of 3.5" diskettes at my local thrift stores for a dollar each over the last couple weeks, they are as common as dirt still and there really is no reason to hold onto old worn out ones when NOS is still floating out there.

Of course using a clean and calibrated drive like has been suggested helps a lot too. I've had many disk read errors solved just by wiping off the read / write heads on the drive in question.

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/disktest_pro.html