Nice video. It's important to note that care must be taken to not press too hard on the wafer as you're cleaning it, as excessive pressure or rubbing can physically remove the oxide from the wafer. Also, if the surface of the wafer is sticky, STOP because it means the binder started to break down and turn into goo long before you got the disk. To fix that, you can bake the wafer carefully in a scientific oven at 58C for a few hours, which will re-consolidate the binder.
Thanks for the additional info, very informative as always! Do you need to extract the disc from the jacket prior to this baking process and is there a high risk of data loss when performing this operation?
@@retrobitstv The wafer should be removed from the jacket and hung on a hook (via the hub ring) so that both sides can be baked. As for data loss, you will definitely get data loss if you try to use a goopy wafer because the head will scrape the oxide right off the wafer, so baking it will only make your chances better, not worse. But it has to be a scientific oven with very exact temperature control, you don't want to overdo it. (this is the same advice given to people restoring old real-to-reel tapes, by the way)
You can also make a motorized disk cleaner, by taking a 5.25" floppy drive (preferably one that's non-functional) and removing all the parts except the clamping mechanism and motor. Then wire the motor directly to the power going in so that it's spinning continuously, and that's it!
2nd Time I've learned something from you in the short time I've been a sub. You're batting average is looking good. I didn't know that floppies had/could have a mold problem. I'm lucky I live in a dry climate, but from now on, I will always check my floppy disks prior to using them. Thank you! And thanks for the link to the solution; the Floppy Disk Cleaner.
It’s good to know there’s a method to clean these. Last year I discovered some of my C64 disks had developed mold, probably from sitting in my previous house’s damp basement which had mold.
In the first few seconds - I had a pack of "new" disks which had that pattern on the recording surface, and when they failed I was like "these new disks suck". Older disks like those from Goldstar were great, even if they looked worn out (I forget the other names, but one gets a sense of what is reliable from experience).
You can also use Old Floppy Drive Mechs to do this also, and if you are gently enough you can let the drive spin the disk for you. and use a cotton swab with 91+ rubbing alcohol IPA. I took an old 3.5 teac floppy drive removed the head assembly and then powered it on to spin the disk, also some old ancient 360K floppy drive did the same thing removed the head assembly and use it to clean old disks, the 3.5 floppy drive mechs open the slide protector for you! LIKE EVERYONE IS SAYING DONT PUSH TOO HARD do not damage the floppy disk anymore than it is, you may have to pre-treat it with the IPA and then it will come off easier after soaking (We dont have this problem in the Dry climate high in the mountains here, but I purchased Apple2GS floppys from someone on the eastcoast of the USA, and many of the disks were moldy.)
This is very helpful thank you! None of my original disks have mold but some new-old-stock verbatim disks I bought did. I may just manually rotate the mylar disk around and wipe with IPA as the mold exposes in the window. No 3d printer here.
I have found basically the same as you. My disk collection from the 80's for a couple years was stored in an outside storage unit. While 90% of my collection was fine, I noticed patterns on some of the disks. Not really mold like these were but obvious corruption. What I found was that they were all common to certain brands. 3M SS,SD disks were just about all bad. Yet the later 3M DS,DD disks were usually all good. I even had a case of 100 3M SS,SD that were sealed NOS and virtually every one was bad. The other brands that I found to corrupt were by OPUS, CERTRON, SYNCOM (Except the platinum ones) and some older Verbatims and Kodak. Despite what the 8-bit guy stated in his episode about floppy disks, newer made disks were not always garbage. The newer made disks were often made with anti-mold/mildew material that made them resistant to the major problem. Opus were often used as an OEM disk in duplication and elsewhere, from what I have read. That would explain why so many of my early LOADSTAR disks were also corrupt, as they were using OPUS media and even selling them as blanks.
I should have audited all the different disks and brands and make a spreadsheet to see which are most prone to mold. That would have made a good addition to the video. Ah well, hindsight.
In addition to the doors, I wonder if the density of the magnetic medium on the mylar surface may play a role in mold resistance for 3.5" disks. The most capacious 5.25" disks are physically much larger than the most capacious 3.5" disks and yet hold less data. That implies that the magnetic medium is likely less densely packed and therefore more porous on 5.25" disks.
On 3.5 inch disks, you can remove the the sliding door, open them, clean them and put them back together :) On 5.25 inch disks, you would have to slice them open to clean them fast, so great tool :)
I’d like to see a tweaked design that flexes the disk cover away from the disc while turning so that it isn’t rubbing the magnetic disc inside while you turn it. Like, maybe some spring-loaded arms that you tape to an unlabeled part of the cover before you start turning it. Turning it with mold growing on the surface will, no doubt, spread the spores around inside and wipe much of it off where you can’t access it.
The jacket of a floppy disk is lined with a thin cloth layer, which traps dust and other particles as the disk spins. It's okay for some of the mold to get caught in that, as it isn't getting back out. Also, if you can spin a disk, you can clean the entire readable surface. The goal of cleaning a disk isn't necessarily to start using it again, but rather to rescue any data on it before it goes bad permanently.
@@JimLeonard Have run into this issue in the past couple of weeks after picking up a box of Amiga 500 machines and disks, the 3.5" disks definitely suffer with mold but worse than that, plenty of them have a weak leaf spring which lifts a piece of that cloth to contact the disk surface, it scratches the disk surface.
@@M0UAW_IO83 Any 3.5 inch disk that has a problem with the slide mechanism or the spring, I just remove the whole thing. You'll never get a working floppy out of it, so just remove the whole thing, rescue your data, then throw it away.
I was able to get disfunctional floppies to work by keeping them in a ziplock plastic baggie with salt at the bottom. They didnt seem moldy so i assumed the problem was moisture.
8:50 - For what it's worth I have encountered 3.5" disks with mold, some of them so bad that the disk can't even turn inside the housing without a lot of force applied (more than the drive spindle can manage) - though these are disks of mine that spent a solid decade neglected in a drafty outdoor garage or similar environments.
3:18 "It's important that you inspect and clean your dirty disk before inserting it" - isn't that advice we all could use? Oh, 6:58 don't forget to clean your backside?
I didn't even notice the Atari version on the other side of the disk! The Apple II version I had back in the day was only for a single system and booting the back-side of the disk would cause the game graphics to flip upside-down. Though if you'll recall, my Kung Fu Master disk for Apple II had C64 on the back side and playing it on the 64 in the school library was really the only option because the Apple version was so bad it was basically unplayable. One of the darkest days of my 10-year-old life, purchasing that disk at Toys R Us and bringing it up with much anticipation and realizing I had been scammed. That was the day my youthful innocence was lost forever. Or something.
I don’t think this is a good idea… The mold is occurring all over the disk, (not in the read write window). It is also in the fabric layer just above every contaminated spot on your disk. When you fire up this thing in your 1541 you are re-contaminating your disk and in turn your drive head…
Nice video. It's important to note that care must be taken to not press too hard on the wafer as you're cleaning it, as excessive pressure or rubbing can physically remove the oxide from the wafer. Also, if the surface of the wafer is sticky, STOP because it means the binder started to break down and turn into goo long before you got the disk. To fix that, you can bake the wafer carefully in a scientific oven at 58C for a few hours, which will re-consolidate the binder.
Thanks for the additional info, very informative as always! Do you need to extract the disc from the jacket prior to this baking process and is there a high risk of data loss when performing this operation?
@@retrobitstv The wafer should be removed from the jacket and hung on a hook (via the hub ring) so that both sides can be baked. As for data loss, you will definitely get data loss if you try to use a goopy wafer because the head will scrape the oxide right off the wafer, so baking it will only make your chances better, not worse. But it has to be a scientific oven with very exact temperature control, you don't want to overdo it. (this is the same advice given to people restoring old real-to-reel tapes, by the way)
You can also make a motorized disk cleaner, by taking a 5.25" floppy drive (preferably one that's non-functional) and removing all the parts except the clamping mechanism and motor. Then wire the motor directly to the power going in so that it's spinning continuously, and that's it!
My life is complete. I can die happy now :-)
2nd Time I've learned something from you in the short time I've been a sub. You're batting average is looking good. I didn't know that floppies had/could have a mold problem. I'm lucky I live in a dry climate, but from now on, I will always check my floppy disks prior to using them. Thank you! And thanks for the link to the solution; the Floppy Disk Cleaner.
I could listen to you talk about dirty floppies all day 😆
Give a thought to those who still uses 8" floppies... :-)
stlファイルの公開、本当にありがとうございます
プリントしてFD清掃してみようと思います！
It’s good to know there’s a method to clean these. Last year I discovered some of my C64 disks had developed mold, probably from sitting in my previous house’s damp basement which had mold.
In the first few seconds - I had a pack of "new" disks which had that pattern on the recording surface, and when they failed I was like "these new disks suck". Older disks like those from Goldstar were great, even if they looked worn out (I forget the other names, but one gets a sense of what is reliable from experience).
You can also use Old Floppy Drive Mechs to do this also, and if you are gently enough you can let the drive spin the disk for you. and use a cotton swab with 91+ rubbing alcohol IPA. I took an old 3.5 teac floppy drive removed the head assembly and then powered it on to spin the disk, also some old ancient 360K floppy drive did the same thing removed the head assembly and use it to clean old disks, the 3.5 floppy drive mechs open the slide protector for you! LIKE EVERYONE IS SAYING DONT PUSH TOO HARD do not damage the floppy disk anymore than it is, you may have to pre-treat it with the IPA and then it will come off easier after soaking (We dont have this problem in the Dry climate high in the mountains here, but I purchased Apple2GS floppys from someone on the eastcoast of the USA, and many of the disks were moldy.)
that could make circular scratches
When a 1mb floppy was all you needed have a good time.
This is very helpful thank you! None of my original disks have mold but some new-old-stock verbatim disks I bought did. I may just manually rotate the mylar disk around and wipe with IPA as the mold exposes in the window. No 3d printer here.
Don't forget to clean your back-side. Anyone from the UK might take quite differently :-)
In true retro style I washed mine in the dishwasher then dried them in the oven.
I have found basically the same as you. My disk collection from the 80's for a couple years was stored in an outside storage unit. While 90% of my collection was fine, I noticed patterns on some of the disks. Not really mold like these were but obvious corruption. What I found was that they were all common to certain brands. 3M SS,SD disks were just about all bad. Yet the later 3M DS,DD disks were usually all good. I even had a case of 100 3M SS,SD that were sealed NOS and virtually every one was bad. The other brands that I found to corrupt were by OPUS, CERTRON, SYNCOM (Except the platinum ones) and some older Verbatims and Kodak. Despite what the 8-bit guy stated in his episode about floppy disks, newer made disks were not always garbage. The newer made disks were often made with anti-mold/mildew material that made them resistant to the major problem. Opus were often used as an OEM disk in duplication and elsewhere, from what I have read. That would explain why so many of my early LOADSTAR disks were also corrupt, as they were using OPUS media and even selling them as blanks.
I should have audited all the different disks and brands and make a spreadsheet to see which are most prone to mold. That would have made a good addition to the video. Ah well, hindsight.
In addition to the doors, I wonder if the density of the magnetic medium on the mylar surface may play a role in mold resistance for 3.5" disks. The most capacious 5.25" disks are physically much larger than the most capacious 3.5" disks and yet hold less data. That implies that the magnetic medium is likely less densely packed and therefore more porous on 5.25" disks.
Interesting hypothesis. I guess that could pretty easily be tested! Hrm....
On 3.5 inch disks, you can remove the the sliding door, open them, clean them and put them back together :) On 5.25 inch disks, you would have to slice them open to clean them fast, so great tool :)
I’d like to see a tweaked design that flexes the disk cover away from the disc while turning so that it isn’t rubbing the magnetic disc inside while you turn it. Like, maybe some spring-loaded arms that you tape to an unlabeled part of the cover before you start turning it. Turning it with mold growing on the surface will, no doubt, spread the spores around inside and wipe much of it off where you can’t access it.
The jacket of a floppy disk is lined with a thin cloth layer, which traps dust and other particles as the disk spins. It's okay for some of the mold to get caught in that, as it isn't getting back out. Also, if you can spin a disk, you can clean the entire readable surface. The goal of cleaning a disk isn't necessarily to start using it again, but rather to rescue any data on it before it goes bad permanently.
@@JimLeonard Have run into this issue in the past couple of weeks after picking up a box of Amiga 500 machines and disks, the 3.5" disks definitely suffer with mold but worse than that, plenty of them have a weak leaf spring which lifts a piece of that cloth to contact the disk surface, it scratches the disk surface.
@@M0UAW_IO83 Any 3.5 inch disk that has a problem with the slide mechanism or the spring, I just remove the whole thing. You'll never get a working floppy out of it, so just remove the whole thing, rescue your data, then throw it away.
I was able to get disfunctional floppies to work by keeping them in a ziplock plastic baggie with salt at the bottom. They didnt seem moldy so i assumed the problem was moisture.
Really needed this cause I got a lot of 3.5 floppy disks and I found lots of them are moldy
It is just beyond my Understanding how Mold is everywhere floating around just waiting for the right Moment to settle on something.
I recently got around 150 3.5" disks of which ~40 had mould on them. So it happens on them as well.
I guess I just got lucky with mine then!
8:50 - For what it's worth I have encountered 3.5" disks with mold, some of them so bad that the disk can't even turn inside the housing without a lot of force applied (more than the drive spindle can manage) - though these are disks of mine that spent a solid decade neglected in a drafty outdoor garage or similar environments.
Well there goes my theory right out the window :) I guess I just got lucky with mine.
Great video as always.
3:18 "It's important that you inspect and clean your dirty disk before inserting it" - isn't that advice we all could use? Oh, 6:58 don't forget to clean your backside?
Probably mold has ben on some disc before storaging and developed over time
A "Karateka" disk where side B is just the same thing for a different computer? That seems wrong...
I didn't even notice the Atari version on the other side of the disk! The Apple II version I had back in the day was only for a single system and booting the back-side of the disk would cause the game graphics to flip upside-down. Though if you'll recall, my Kung Fu Master disk for Apple II had C64 on the back side and playing it on the 64 in the school library was really the only option because the Apple version was so bad it was basically unplayable. One of the darkest days of my 10-year-old life, purchasing that disk at Toys R Us and bringing it up with much anticipation and realizing I had been scammed. That was the day my youthful innocence was lost forever. Or something.
The mold on my disk looks super dark, and looks like the disk is just rotting…
yeah
Let me get my 3D PRINTING MACHINE and make a model to be able to clean my floppy
Can you not refer to your previous videos by number?
I don’t think this is a good idea… The mold is occurring all over the disk, (not in the read write window). It is also in the fabric layer just above every contaminated spot on your disk. When you fire up this thing in your 1541 you are re-contaminating your disk and in turn your drive head…
Don’t tase me bro