- ! How to clean a dirty/mouldy disk ! -
 

Hi guys,

I have finally made today a tutorial on youtube in order to show you how to clean correctly floppy disks with mould and crap on the disk surface.

the video below :

https://youtu.be/pzDN9Pu7TGs


I apologize for the english, as i did this tut quick 'n' Fast.

Any comments are welcome :)

Thanks for this.
What about the fabric inside the disk case? Mold could stay there maybe, spores, whatever we cannot plain see. How about washing the cases and then leaving them to dry properly?

Personally, the way I did it, and it was only for backup purposes, is I transferred the cleaned disc into a known clean case.

Like explained above, i did the tuto quickly. It's true however that i normally pass the inner coating to the alcohol.

I didn't do it in the video. But it's indeed worth to be noted :)

Your my hand twin:great We could be Rich!

Ah you mean my hands look like yours, or you mean i'm very agile and habile with my hands ? lol :laughing

Just my hand fetish.

Ok, but why rich ? :confused :D

Since this is sticky I thought of putting my question here;

How can one get rid of black spots on the floppy (internal) platter. I use a very similar method to the above to clean floppy disks with IPA. However I noticed some disks have areas which are darker, sometimes just spots, sometimes a full chunks. Also, not sure, but I am under the impression that these become more visible after IPA is applied. I tried using more IPA to remove them but to no avail.

So what are these dark spots? Is it possible to clean or the floppy can be considered dead once such black spots appear? Also does inserting disks with such dark spots in a floppy drive put the floppy drive at risk?

I have saved 1000's of disks, with soft cloth and washing up liquid (found IPA didn't do a good enough job). It removes all the dirt, so aslong as the magnetic field is still intact, you are good to go.

Washing up liquid... Can imagine the mrs when she goes to do the dishes and theres no detergent left cause you've used it all on your disks :laughing

First thing I've learned with disks -back in the days, but still strong in my brainstem ;) - is : never touch the surface with anything or it's dead instantly.

Which explains how stunned I was 1-2 years ago when I learned about this methods of cleaning. I never tried it myself, but there are quite some sources (including JanBeta IIRC) who recommend this, so I'm sure it works.

Note that you can 3d-print two simple tools, one to keep the lid open, and one to turn the disk easily and thus removing the need to open the case. I dont have the link available now, but can find it if needed.

edit:
Didnt find a thingiverse entry, but an ebay offer for this tool. (click on: see original listing)

Awesome tip!
On thingiverse I can recommend this little design :)
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2715428

I use _weak_ IPA on one end of a cotton bud to wet the dirty spot and then use the dry end to gently scrub/dry. It's slow but works most of the time without destroying disks.
Note: If your drive was used to read mouldy disks then the heads are probably dirty too and will need cleaning.

[edit, thanks dlfsilver]

the IPA is better at 70% ; 99% is way too strong, it removes the magnetic substrat at the surface of the disk.

There needs to be an easy way to repair/replace the plastic disk body since a lot of them seem to be glued together. As mentioned above, a dirty disk will mean dirty pads inside the case. A lot of old unhappy disks make ugly scrapey noises when put in a drive indicating that the cloth pads are not in good shape.

I wish there were a good solution but I've never seen one.

My way (I did it for 5.25" but should work for 3.5" too):

I've took a bad drive and removed heads and everything uneeded.

If you connect to GND the Pin #10 or #16 (depending if your drive is set as #0 or #1) of the data connector will make the motor to go on permanently.

To power the floppy drive I use an old ATX psu I repurposed as backup power supply for my tests (however if you have an ATX psu you can switch it on simply connecting the green wire to a black wire on the motherboard connector).

I put a button normally open to switch the motor on.

Then I put the floppy into the drive, press the button and, while the disc is spinning, I clean it with soft paper towel and alcohol. It's quite fast and straight, even if you have many disks to clean.

The problem with the 3.5" of course is that you haven't access on the back side, unless you find a way to open an access from behind.

I have to say, however, that this way you can't clean inside the floppy (impossible without to break the solders on a 5.25" floppy) and in any case it's quite hard to impossible to recover a severe damaged disk. When I see mold or deep scratches on the disk I do not even try to clean it anymore.

Thanks guys for sharing - very useful :)

Any chance to get the youtube video back online or is there a similar one somewhere else?

Anyone got any ideas for removing the musty smells? i have around 500 disks and they are not mouldy but smell musty. I have put them in a huge plastic container with a couple of silica pouches but they still smell .

I imagine ozone will do the trick. But, I've no idea if that'll do damage to the disk surface.
It's the only thing I've found that'll get rid of that smell on plastics, metal, etc.

Ozone is fairly lethal though, so, research it before you use an ozone generator.

Ozone will work as a biocide, but the bio mass will be stuck to the platter. You really need to wash the mould off somehow. Not as easy as you'd think, it's easy to scrape off the magnetic coating while you do this.