Cleaning floppy disks (not drives). - UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum

electrosys · 13th Jun 2010, 10:58 am

With finite mortality in mind, I recently decided to recover my SC84 software collection and donate it to the public domain for posterity - but due to numerous house moves over the last 25 years the keyboard and monitor of the m/c have gone missing, so I've had to resort to using Sydex's 22Disk (on a 386 - hastily cobbled together - as the prog wouldn't play ball on my workaday machine).

Now to put this post in context, the several boxes of 3.5" floppies I've been working on (containing mostly ex-8" software) have been stored in various lofts and garden sheds under gawd knows what variations in temperature and humidity over some 20 years or so.

What surprised me was the variation in disk condition - some could be read from without difficulty, whereas a few emitted a graunching, grinding sound. Having lifted the software from the 'good' disks, I then turned to the noisy ones.

On closer examination through the disk's sliding window, the surface of some of these disks looked not unlike a Petri dish with bacterial cultures - little areas of what looked like crystalline growths.
On the basis of fix-it or chuck-it, I opened the 3.5" cases and extracted the disks. Several wipes (but no rubbing) with a soft lint-free cloth and methylated spirits, before returning the disk to a known good case, resulted in the the noise (and read errors) disappearing.

I say 'known good case', because in some cases the paper lining had swollen and buckled, and in one case the glue holding the paper lining to the disk case had completely failed.

In this way, I've managed to recover all except one of the 3.5" floppies. The one lost was due to glue failure between the metal hub and floppy media. Without much confidence in lining-up tracks, I tried re-gluing, but only garbage resulted. Fortunately it was only a library disk containing Supercalc and Dbase II.

Thought I'd pass this info on in case others have really old collections of software - might be worth checking the readability of your collection ? - although I doubt if anyone else's disks have been as abused as these have been in storage.

'best ...
Colin

Lucien Nunes · 13th Jun 2010, 12:33 pm

Hi Colin
Thanks for posting your findings, normally with these data-loss scenarios it's all doom and gloom, so good to hear of your success. I would think there are lots of collections of software out there in similar condition, I know some of my discs have various 'contamination' on the media and inside the jacket. Definitely worth cleaning up, it seems.

Lucien

DAVEHALL · 21st Jul 2010, 8:26 pm

This is more a vintage software idea ,to cure a vintage disc problem . If you can get hold of Norton tools 4.5 ,it contains a floppy repairer(Disc Test) - the one I had way back in the 2/3/486 days worked well -but it needs DOS 6 OR LESS ( available from download sites ).I'd suggest a separate hard drive self booting with Norton -or maybe even a self booting CD .No use in the case of contaminated discs ,but great on discs with data problems .

13th Jun 2010, 10:58 am	#1
electrosys Diode Join Date: May 2010 Location: Lincolnshire, UK. Posts: 2	Cleaning floppy disks (not drives). With finite mortality in mind, I recently decided to recover my SC84 software collection and donate it to the public domain for posterity - but due to numerous house moves over the last 25 years the keyboard and monitor of the m/c have gone missing, so I've had to resort to using Sydex's 22Disk (on a 386 - hastily cobbled together - as the prog wouldn't play ball on my workaday machine). Now to put this post in context, the several boxes of 3.5" floppies I've been working on (containing mostly ex-8" software) have been stored in various lofts and garden sheds under gawd knows what variations in temperature and humidity over some 20 years or so. What surprised me was the variation in disk condition - some could be read from without difficulty, whereas a few emitted a graunching, grinding sound. Having lifted the software from the 'good' disks, I then turned to the noisy ones. On closer examination through the disk's sliding window, the surface of some of these disks looked not unlike a Petri dish with bacterial cultures - little areas of what looked like crystalline growths. On the basis of fix-it or chuck-it, I opened the 3.5" cases and extracted the disks. Several wipes (but no rubbing) with a soft lint-free cloth and methylated spirits, before returning the disk to a known good case, resulted in the the noise (and read errors) disappearing. I say 'known good case', because in some cases the paper lining had swollen and buckled, and in one case the glue holding the paper lining to the disk case had completely failed. In this way, I've managed to recover all except one of the 3.5" floppies. The one lost was due to glue failure between the metal hub and floppy media. Without much confidence in lining-up tracks, I tried re-gluing, but only garbage resulted. Fortunately it was only a library disk containing Supercalc and Dbase II. Thought I'd pass this info on in case others have really old collections of software - might be worth checking the readability of your collection ? - although I doubt if anyone else's disks have been as abused as these have been in storage. 'best ... Colin

13th Jun 2010, 12:33 pm	#2
Lucien Nunes Rest in Peace Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: London, UK. Posts: 2,508	Re: Cleaning floppy disks (not drives). Hi Colin Thanks for posting your findings, normally with these data-loss scenarios it's all doom and gloom, so good to hear of your success. I would think there are lots of collections of software out there in similar condition, I know some of my discs have various 'contamination' on the media and inside the jacket. Definitely worth cleaning up, it seems. Lucien

21st Jul 2010, 8:26 pm	#3
DAVEHALL Retired Dormant Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Coventry, Warwickshire, UK. Posts: 339	Re: Cleaning floppy disks (not drives). This is more a vintage software idea ,to cure a vintage disc problem . If you can get hold of Norton tools 4.5 ,it contains a floppy repairer(Disc Test) - the one I had way back in the 2/3/486 days worked well -but it needs DOS 6 OR LESS ( available from download sites ).I'd suggest a separate hard drive self booting with Norton -or maybe even a self booting CD .No use in the case of contaminated discs ,but great on discs with data problems .