hi, im using some old (mean used before) floppy disks but i noticed floppy drive not working well after using these old diskettes. im using floppy disk cleaner and its works again. so im suspicious using these old disks. any one has same problem? thanks.
It depends on the disks... If they were stored improper and started to mould, got dirty, got demagnetised or desintegrate they will ruin a drive quite fast or stop working.
also a dirty drive can ruin disks aswell.
If the drive and the disk are clean, and the disks were stored properly it should not matter how old they are.
FCKGW-RHQQ2
Check the condition of the disks. If they have been stored in damp conditions, there may be mould in them. If that is the case, better toss those and get new floppies, even used ones. Floppies aren’t exactly unobtanium nowadays.
I've got hundreds of 720kb and 1.44Mb floppies that all read just fine and have been stored in shoe boxes in the attic since the late 90s/early 2000s.
Age doesn't seem to be a factor. Environmentals are though, as is the condition of the drive.
thanks im asking that old floppies harm the drive or what condititons?
rain wrote on 2023-09-25, 14:00:thanks im asking that old floppies harm the drive or what condititons?
If there is mould or some other junk on the floppies, then sure, it can damage drive heads. But just being old doesn’t.
I guess it is the right thread to ask this question ...
... so if a floppy is dirty, is there a way to clean it (without destroying it)? Any suggestions?
ThinkpadIL wrote on 2023-09-25, 14:45:I guess it is the right thread to ask this question ...
... so if a floppy is dirty, is there a way to clean it (without destroying it)? Any suggestions?
Depends how dirty it is, with what, and how badly you need to read it. In some cases it might be worthwhile to carefully cut open the envelope, wash the media itself in warm water with some dishwashing liquid, rinse and dry, then repack into another (or also cleaned) enevlope. Less severe cases can be handled throught the head window/cutout. I do not recommend washing the floppies without removing the media first but that too can be done if you have time and some experience with drying it all afterwards. And it will take a long time to dry.
Oily dirt can be removed with IPA (after excess is wiped first) but take care not to rub too hard or you will damage the media. In general you always want to avoid using any force or strong solvents, but sometimes the media state is so bad that some choices have to be made - after all it either cleans up or is unusable anyway.
i think this is discussied before on vogons but cant find any thread.
paradigital wrote on 2023-09-25, 13:58:I've got hundreds of 720kb and 1.44Mb floppies that all read just fine and have been stored in shoe boxes in the attic since the late 90s/early 2000s.
Age doesn't seem to be a factor. Environmentals are though, as is the condition of the drive.
I second this, same experience here.
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ThinkpadIL wrote on 2023-09-25, 14:45:I guess it is the right thread to ask this question ...
... so if a floppy is dirty, is there a way to clean it (without destroying it)? Any suggestions?
Some time ago I copied a pile of C64 disks from different sources over to the PC. Many of those that showed read errors had visible spots on the media surface. I cleaned them with cotton swabs (Q-Tips) that I drenched in IPA. In many cases that made the spots disappear and the sectors readable again.
I didn't remove the media from the housing but it took some time to manually rotate the disk and search for the spots.
