The disks that failed me were definitely of the 3.5' 1.44MB variety, and were most likely the cheapest brand we could buy. In college, the cost a printer and ink was prohibitive on my budget, so I would use the printers at school.

I certainly never had my own personal printer until after college at home we eventually got a single 'family' printer, which was it connected to my personal computer. This was always distressing, because it was very common at the time for students to bring their assignments in to school to print, as home printers were not as commonplace or expensive. I'm certain that I have written documents for school assignments to disk, only to discover later that the file was corrupted or unreadable on school computers.

Specifically, I'm interested in situations where the disk held a document that was needed for a school assignment or for work, and failed read at the necessary time, causing a loss of credit (school) or other problems that occurred at a job where the needed document was otherwise not available (at another site or could not be retrieved in time elsewhere onsite). I am curious if anyone can confirm anecdotally whether they experienced a contemporary failure of a blank floppy disk purchased at retail that later failed.

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