Found my old dial-up password list on a floppy disk and it's a mess

I was cleaning out my parents' attic in Toledo and found a box of old 3.5 inch disks, one labeled 'AOL passwords 1998' (which is a bad idea, I know). I popped it into my old Windows 98 machine and the file was corrupted, so I couldn't even see the dumb list of passwords I made up like 'xena123' and 'n64rulez'. Has anyone else had a floppy just give up after sitting for twenty years?

3 comments

3 Comments

seanfisher2mo ago

Oh man, that's a classic. Just found a box of my own old disks and half of them are completely unreadable now. The plastic feels weird and brittle, too.

sanchez.robin19d ago

Toss them in a dry, cool spot for a day before you try again sometimes the moisture makes them seize up. Ever try wiggling the drive back and forth a little while it loads?

sethk432mo ago

Remember my buddy trying to read his old Duke Nukem saves off a floppy? Total fail, just like @seanfisher said. The drive made this awful grinding noise and spit out a bunch of fuzzy brown dust. We figured the magnetic stuff inside just flaked apart after baking in his garage for decades.