Washing Your 5.25" Disks or Give Your Dirty Disks a Bath

by Myron Daniels

A few days ago, I needed to retrieve some critical data from a 5.25" disk.

My trusty old 1571 drive notified me, "File not found!" Tried again and got the same report. Hmmm?

Thinking one or both (lower or upper) read/write heads may be a bit dirty, I wet a 5.25" cleaning disk
with 99% water free isopropyl alcohol, then placed the disk in the drive.

To spin the disk, I pressed F3, which is the way to do a directory list on a C-128. On a C-64 you
type, LOAD "$",8 for a directory listing. This too will cause the disk to spin.

For me, it's a quick way to spin the cleaning disk and wipe off any minor grime that may have built up
on the read/write head, without having to disassemble the drive and cleaning the heads.

That done, I again put the data disk in the drive and attempted to load the data.

Same response, "File Not Found!"

I really needed this data. Yep, you guessed it, NO backup disk.

Fearing the worst, I tried another disk and files loaded without a hitch.

What the heck is going on? Corrupted disk?

Pondering on what to do, or rather, what the problem was with this disk, I looked at disk through the
window in the disk sheath, and there saw what appeared to be splotches of something on the disk's
media.

Could this splotch be the cause of "File Not Found" problem? Hmmmmm. Truly needed the data.

No point in trying to do a disk copy.

If it can't find a file, it won't copy; right? Well, not always true.

A few times in the past, a disk copy did work. But not this time.

With nothing to lose and everything to gain, I took the sheath in hand, tapped it on my desk to cause the
disk inside to go to the bottom of the sheath towards the disk window.

Next, I pushed gently on the hub to ensure it was all the way down in the sheath.

Then, with a sharp scissors, I carefully cut the top off the sheath.

From past experience, I did not try to open the disk seals, as you can very easily damage the disk.

Removed the disk from its sheath and inspected it. Found many splotches on both sides of the disk.

Placed the disk on a clean piece of paper towel on a flat surface.

Then I mixed up a solution of about 1/8 teaspoon of liquid detergent (Dawn) with 4 ounces of tap
water.

Next I wet a small piece of a clean sponge or cotton ball with the mixture, and gently rubbed the disk in
a circular orbit, on both sides of the disk.

Next I washed off the disk under the faucet. Reinspection of the disk revealed that most of the
splotches were gone. Repeated the cleaning a second time to get all of it off.

The splotches appeared to be gone.

Placed the disk between paper towel to absorb most of the water.

Laid the disk on a clean paper towel to complete the drying.

When the disk was dry, I slipped it back into the disk's sheath.

Loaded my Pocket Writer 3 word processor, and, holding my breath, I attempted to load that file from
the data disk.

Yes, it worked. I've got the file.

Being the coward, I immediately printed a hard copy of the data I desperately needed.

Then I saved that file to a pre formatted 1571 blank disk. I always keep a couple of pre formatted
disks on hand.

With Maverick 5.2 did a whole disk copy, and now have a back up disk

I'll keep the old sheath for another time, should I need it for some task.

LASTLY: In areas that are high in humidity such as most areas in our lovely Hawaii, these areas are
prone to the growth of fungus on most any material. It does happen on disks.

So, to the detergent water solution mentioned above, with an eyedropper, add TWO drops ONLY of
Clorox.

Clean as noted above, then wash the disk under the water faucet to make sure the disk is clean.

Repeat cleaning till disk looks clean.

Dry disk as noted above. You should now have a disk to work with to do a whole disk copy.

Having succeeded with the above methods, I wondered if I could do the same with another type
cleaner that would evaporate quickly.

So, I made a couple of experiments.

Energine Spot Remover is made up of 100% naptha. Using a small cotton ball, I tried it on a different
disk having ugly splotches. It works!

CAUTION! BE CAREFUL, this fluid is highly FLAMMABLE. Use in a well ventilated area. NEVER,
NEVER, CLEAN DRIVE HEADS WITH SOLVENT TYPE FLUIDS LIKE THIS NAPTHA
PRODUCT.

Well, I hope this article will help some users who have DIRTY DISKS in need of a bath; for the
reasons I've mentioned in the beginning of this article.

There may be other methods. These worked for me.  

(From Hawaii On-Line, Sept-Oct 1999, via the Commodore Information Center,
http://home.att.net/~rmestel/commodore.html)