[vcf-midatlantic] Needed 5-1/4? Cleaning Floppy
David K
davekre17 at gmail.com
Fri Aug 14 21:03:13 EDT 2020
I recently bought a 5 1/4 version of Witness from infocom. I bought it for
the contents as the listing said the disk was bad. Visually looking at the
disk it looked dirty.
I used a sharp hobby knife to open the disk "envelope" at the top edge (the
edge you hold when you put the disk in the drive). This allowed me to
totally remove the magnetic disc itself - being careful not to touch the
magnetic parts.
I used 90% rubbing alcohol and a cotton ball. I cleaned the bottom side of
this disk because that was the side actually read by the head. I used
moderate pressure and cleaned the disc in a circular pattern from outside
to inside. I could see some dirt on the cotton ball. I let it dry
completely and then put it back in the "envelope" and tried it in the
drive. Initially it did not work but after repeating the same process two
more times the disk has been working.
I have used this same process with other "dirty" disks and been
successful maybe 30% of the time.
David K
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