Magnetic media and mold cleanup

From: Jerome Fine <jhfine_at_idirect.com>
Date: Tue Feb 26 09:50:32 2002

>Douglas Quebbeman wrote:

> > > For floppies, I just break 'em open any way I can,
> > > and then use bare, clean hands with dish detergent.
> > > Let dry on a lint-free rag and you're through.
> > Jerome Fine replies:
> > I am trying to recover some files from an DEC RX02 (8" SSDD)
> > floppy. After you clean the media, how do you put it back into
> > the drive?
> Using a brand-new donor diskette, which gets the same Xacto-
> knife treatment, I put the cleaned media in the new shell,
> and with one or two carefully-placed drops of cyanoacrylate,
> you have a reconstructed floppy.

Jerome Fine replies:

"donor" diskette? Are we now harvesting computer parts?

The person I am doing the recovery for may already have
enough of the files. I will see how much further I should go.

> > I have one floppy that has over 100 error blocks (can't be read)
> > out of 988. Others have just a few. Is it possible to only spot clean
> > the ones with a few errors without removing the jacket?
> Dunno- let us know!

Likewise for the answer above.

> > Will Formula 409 work with floppy media? Where
> > can it be purchased?
> Oh, it's a common household cleaner here in the U.S... a
> comparable cleaner is Fantastik.

We have Fantastik here in Canada. I am in Toronto. Windex
is also a grease dissolving fluid and is used for glass. How might that
do?

>Joe wrote:
>If you just want to be able to read it long enough to recover it's data
>then don't put it back in a jacket! Just put the bare disk into the drive
>and copy it. I know several people that have successfully done this with 5
>1/4" disk. However if your dirve has a spring loaded ejector, you may need
>to open up the housing and push the ejector back by hand.

I will try that also if I go that far.

Thank you both for the help!
Received on Tue Feb 26 2002 - 09:50:32 GMT