[ILUG] Floppy problems

[Kevin Philp]

We have a couple of Windows and even a DOS machine still floating around the 
lab, usually running various bits of equipment. Often people save data from 
these machines to a floppy and then copy it onto their Linux desktop. However 
we seem to get regular problems, disks will write on DOS but Linux claims its 
corrupt, disks from Win XP or Win NT machines just won't read on Linux. 

The problems seem to be quite random so I am wondering what is the likely 
cause:

1. Did we just buy some really duff floppies?
2. Is there some Win/Linux incompatibility with very old machines?
3. Was buying cheap floppy drives for our Linux desktops a false economy?

Kevin.