Cleaning Disks With Mold Or Muck

[Loedown]

I have a reasonable stockpile of old disks which were certainly never stored in great conditions and like their VHS counterparts some of them have mold and unidentifiable muck on the surface of them. I have been using Contact Cleaner and a cotton tip to great effect. Just open the window on the floppy disk and spin it with a screwdriver or similar until you find the problem areas and simply clean the crud off with a light motion.

[mr.vince]

Still contaminated, especially the fabric that is between the plastic case and the to protect the latter.

I would recommend opening the disc, washing it in IPA / pure water (50/50) and little cleaning fluid, preferably with anti mould additive. Let dry thoroughly, then reassemble in fresh case.

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by mr.vince

Still contaminated, especially the fabric that is between the plastic case and the to protect the latter.

I would recommend opening the disc, washing it in IPA / pure water (50/50) and little cleaning fluid, preferably with anti mould additive. Let dry thoroughly, then reassemble in fresh case.

I reckon you guys would have a better idea than myself but I can say that for a quick and dirty method it certainly works for getting you out of a spot of bother. I have an A1000 in for repair at the moment and I am using real floppies to verify its operation instead of the HxC.

[Cymru]

I agree with mr.vince; this is by far the best way to clean a floppy (anti-mold additive is a few drops of bleach) with mold, cat pee, or crud.

[orange]

I just had an idea, since mould is organic, if we could keep diskette in a vacuum for a while, it should stop spreading after wards.
dunno how to create a good enough vacuum cheaply, though.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by orange

dunno how to create a good enough vacuum cheaply, though.

Or how to obtain a suitable hermetically sealed enclosure for it cheaply either, I'd guess.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by orange

I just had an idea, since mould is organic, if we could keep diskette in a vacuum for a while, it should stop spreading after wards.
dunno how to create a good enough vacuum cheaply, though.

Stick it into one of these:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VACUUM-PUM...item43bbe3ad32
Ok, maybe not exactly cheap, and I'm not sure the vacuum is good enough for killing mold.
I think just keeping the disk in a dry environment should stop the mold from spreading, but it still needs to be cleaned off if you need to rescue the disk contents.

[s2325]

video [ Show youtube player ]

[alexh]

Originally Posted by orange

I just had an idea, since mould is organic, if we could keep diskette in a vacuum for a while, it should stop spreading after wards.
dunno how to create a good enough vacuum cheaply, though.

I wonder if they would be permanently killed by lack of oxygen or just become dormant? Mould can be dormant for years at sub-zero temperatures.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by alexh

I wonder if they would be permanently killed by lack of oxygen or just become dormant? Mould can be dormant for years at sub-zero temperatures.

Not all fungi need oxygen. Best thing you can do is keep your disks in a dry and clean environment so there won't be any fungal growth to begin with That, and making disk images out of them.

[Retroplay]

I got a new old stock, still in shrinkwrap, 1MB NY Warriors today.
Unfortunately, even though it has never been opened before, the disks looks pretty filthy and has lots of read errors when I try to dump then.

I seem to recall a method of opening up the disks and gently clean the surface inside, or does my memory play tricks on me ?

[psygnosis]

I used glasses lens wipes on mine it worked a treat

[DH]

Moved here Retroplay as it seems appropriate to your question

[Retroplay]

Thanks.

Success !!!!
The dishwater method works wonders.