3.5" Floppy Disk Drive & Floppy Disk Repair

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In this video I'll be rescuing my 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive and the diskette that caused it to go bad.
It would not read any of the diskettes I would put in it! This was due to trying to access a dirty diskette, Prince of Persia, which I recently acquired and wanted to install and backup. The moment I put the diskette in it started making squeaky noises. After that the disk drive would not access any other diskette. This can happen with any diskette. You can spill coffee or another beverage on it. Or it was stored in a humid places and it got infested with mold.
Thankfully, after a good cleaning the disk drive works again! Same goes for the diskette of Prince of Persia, and to add to that, the squeaky noise it made is gone!
I hope this video will be informative for anybody who has had similar experiences and want to rescue their own disk drives and diskettes / floppies.
Disclaimer: this is the first time I do this type of cleaning on a Disk Drive and diskette/floppy. It can help get your drives and diskettes/floppies to work again but there could also be instances where some are just too damaged or dirty.
Music by me.

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Опубликовано:

5 июл 2024

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Комментарии : 75

@nunyabusiness7602 3 года назад

What madness is this?! I've been in the IT industry for 30+ years and have never heard of tearing down a floppy diskette and cleaning it manually like this. Holy crap, the disks I've pitched over the years figuring they were a lost cause. I'll be trying this for myself. Thanks for the video.

@paulcrossgrove5353 2 года назад

I have a disk that is warped and the metal slide is damaged. The 'madness' is finding an expert who knows how to remove the plastic info and putting it into a new disk. You have a problem with that? Why? Have you learned nothing in your 30+ years about this type of data recovery? It seems not. (Posted Jan 22, 2022)

@jarkkolaiho462 Год назад

@@paulcrossgrove5353 And you clearly never learned basic reading comprehension.

@Univac93 3 года назад

Was I the only one skipping a heartbeat when the floppy fell on the probably magnetic screwdriver - head at 4:25?

@Kawa-oneechan 3 года назад

Nope. I held a breath for a moment myself. Then I remembered that one Nostalgia Nerd video about exactly how much magnetic power you need to disrupt a diskette.

@Droopy95mkDS 2 года назад

Then I watched the rest of the video, thinking to myself "yea but it's ALL your floppies that are dirty as ass, have fun cleaning all that crap dude" lol

@mewithoutYou52 5 лет назад

Before this video I had no idea you could actually clean the inside of disks. Now I have some work to do!

@sidsretrocorner 5 лет назад

Kevin Hanley Yeah, with this floppy disk it went very well. Afterwards you can also glue the edges inside a bit so it stays together. When a label goes from the front all the way to the back it gets more tricky. Especially if you want to keep the label untouched.

@Kerring 3 года назад

heh, just don't try your HDD's ;)

@jake.the.riffer 5 лет назад

I remember my dad using floppys for file storage, but the format was a little before my time. Its cool to see a game being played from a floppy disc. Having seen what the disc actually looks like, i now get why they are called "floppy" discs lol

@sidsretrocorner 5 лет назад

Yes, indeed! They were very 'floppy', especially the older 5/4" and 8" floppy discs. These later 3.5" diskettes were a bit more sturdy and even though the disk drives and the discs themselves, magnetic storage, can last a really long time, they are prone to contamination by dirt and stains like spilling coffee over it or keeping it in a moist environment. Luckily cleaning them like this can save them and you'll be able to use them for a long time still... :)

@JerryDayton 4 года назад

@@sidsretrocorner I have two diskette boxes of 5.25 floppy disks that have sat in my garage which isn't temperature controlled. My old 8 bit Atari computer and 1050 drive works, however, when I try to get the disks to load they boot up and show several games but when I try to select and play the game (usually using a joystick or select on the menu) it sends to be frozen.... any suggestions?

@beto1515 Год назад

@@JerryDayton clean them up and see what happens. Is better if you install it in your computer and save the floppy in a safe place for future use. Also sometimes the OS is very new usually those games use to work in 3.1 ,95 ,98 and Win Millennium and win XP with emulator software

@uberyoutuber3892 Год назад

I recently bought a bulk of 3.5" USB Floppy Drives. After opening and cleaning them they did finally work, but only for a few diskettes and eventually inaccessible errors popped up again. After encountering this issue again and again I finally found out that 3.5" Cleaning Disks exist and are a gift from the heavens. The disks I'm trying to run are from the 80s and 90s with dust & dirt on them older than I am. After a few passes with the cleaning disk the drives all are working as needed. Highly recommend a Cleaning Disk, you get a bottled cleaning solution and a disk with a microfiber inside that passes over the drive head and generally can be used 10-15 times.

@bjazz68 2 года назад

Hi, unfortunately it never worked for me, but it stopped me spending ££££££ going to a data recovery service who may only have employed similar cleaning techniques. My data had evaporated over time, and cleaning in this way helped me to confirm that. You are an absolute star! thank you very much :-)

@garytangnet Год назад

You are amazing! If only I watched this before spending a solid month: 1. getting a replacement 3.5 for my Roland W30 which died trying to read my old disks (probably just needed cleaning from the crude on the old disks), 2. then an external USB floppy which couldn't read DSDD, then 3. getting USB floppy replacement on my Roland W30 which led to 4. finding a vintage Dell desktop with a 3.5 floppy to transfer to the USB format, but still couldn't read many of the old disks. Following your video, I just cleaned one of my "unreadable" disk and IT WORKS ! Bless you ! Sharing your experience has helped so many of us ! I am happy with the USB replacement and your video should smooth out the bumps converting the 3.5 floppies into digital USB.

@peterc.1419 2 года назад

Music is very good. Amazing you could this clean this floppy disk so that it would work.

@PhantomFellows 4 года назад

Cleaning the disk worked!! Thank you so much, I’m almost in shock, I bought Dagger of Amon Ra and disks 1-4 read np then the last disk failed. After cleaning per your instructions it read no problem! I even noticed a build up of some kind of junk on the disk and once gone it sure enough worked. I wonder how many disks I’ve written off as data corrupted that just needed a cleaning... I’ll be doing this all night now lol Thank you again mate!

@sidsretrocorner 4 года назад

Glad to hear this worked for you! Awesome! :)

@johnvanderhulst4778 2 года назад

Great clean up brother Sid.

@longlifemilk77 Месяц назад

Great video and found it very interesting and informative

@keircollects 3 года назад

I just want to say, thank you. My Home Alone 2 Disk 2 floppy was given me a CDC error and I did this and it worked. Your video was most helpful and straight forward. :)

@peterc.1419 2 года назад

CRC error. CDC is for COVID. CRC is Cyclic Redundancy Check and yes we had those with the old floppy drives.

@keircollects 2 года назад

@@peterc.1419 Yeah I made a typo.

@peterc.1419 2 года назад

@@keircollects For onlookers. But the cov ref had to be there as joke.

@TozeCerdeira 3 года назад

Man great great video!!! Thanks a lot!!

@Nostalgia_Realm 2 года назад

Great video! I however did not succeed in getting data back from the diskettes. It seems my Sony Mavica camera just randomly sometimes decides to smash the head onto the drive making any data recovery impossible. Edit: It could also be that the disks that I have have accumulated mold or dirt while sitting outside in a shed and the oxide layer is coming off the floppy while trying to use it. It seems to affect mostly my Nashua floppies that are possibly the newest in my collection (bought in 2005-2006).

@sagauer 4 года назад

I used to love this game :-)

@LennWeltmeister 4 года назад

Sid, I get an I/O error when trying to boot and some noise (totally different from the usual one). Tested lots of floppies and the drive couldn't read any. Could it be the drive itself? Maybe the cable? Or maybe even the motherboard, although it is recognized?

@sidsretrocorner 4 года назад

Hi Rogell, sorry for the late reply. It sounds like it's an issue with the drive. Have you been able to fix it? It could be the cable which you can test if you have another cable to try.

@mrvellu 5 лет назад

good work! cleaning old mechanical hardware can do miracles

@sidsretrocorner 5 лет назад

Thanks, Mr. Vellu! It can indeed! I have some experience with this, cleaning my ol' tape deck from the 80's.

@LinuxLoader1287 Год назад

Nice video who dosent remember Prince of Persia

@binplus8517 4 года назад

AWESOME!! Thank you! I recently got the drive responding again ... there must have been dust on the connectors. But now he can't read floppy disks.. I'll try to clean the head :D

@binplus8517 4 года назад

I tryed this... but maybe the problem is the drive or the connectors... Now the drive does a diferent thing... just a noise for about i don't know 5~10 seconds with anything inside. Tryed with a floppy disk but does the same thing.

@LennWeltmeister 4 года назад

@@binplus8517 Yap, same problem here. It's clicking a lot.

@sidsretrocorner 4 года назад

Hi BinPlus, sorry for the late reply. Have you been able to fix your drive?

@binplus8517 4 года назад

@@sidsretrocorner Well, I have not tried to continue touching things.... My next move I think would be to try to clean the cables connectors with alcohol... do you think is a good idea? What I have noticed (I suppose) is that the Drive do differents things when I Plug and Unplug the Cables...

@dlfrsilver Год назад

Quite a few remarks on this video. the magnetic surface gold mould and the internal sheath/coating got contaminated as well. The best way for cleaning disks is to use 70% alcohol (never 90% alcohol it's too harsh) with precision coton buds (not those for ears, those for makeup people). Then simply apply 2 drops of alcohol in the reading window of the disk, and use a floppy cleaner support for 3,5" disks or 5,25" disks. then turn gently, it will kill the mould on the disk surface and also on the internal coating/sheath. repeat on the other side of the disk and that's it. Never use any cloth or paper on the disk surface, this can displace the flux stream of the track (it's very very hard to fix that so don't). And that's it. I have cleaned this way more than 2500 original games with this method (3", 3,5", and 5,25" disks).

@questionmark718 4 года назад

I'm concerned that I have a similar problem with the drive on my recently purchased Smith Corona PWP-325. The machine says "Disk Error" when I try to save a file on the disk that it came with. As I'm still waiting for the new-old-stock disks I bought to arrive I might try cleaning the drive itself. If you've read this far through my ramble, what brand/type of alcohol did you use to clean the read/write head?

@sidsretrocorner 4 года назад

Sorry for the late reply! I use 96% denatured alcohol which I can get at the pharmacy / shop here.

@questionmark718 4 года назад

@@sidsretrocorner OK, so, as it turns out, the problem was completely unrelated to the disks. When I opened it up, the first thing I noticed was that the drive belt was just not there. I put a medium-sized rubber band in its place temporarily and it now functions perfectly. But thank you for the info, I will definitely use this if I do have problems with dirt/dust!

@MrHBSoftware Год назад

you can also replace the floppy disk interior with a new one and copy the data onto it while keeping the original outside shell for looks

@Fahrenheit38 2 года назад

On some floppies I'll swap the magnetic disc with a new old stock one that I wrote the game into before hand. Works a treat

@raffinataonline 2 месяца назад

So, I know this is really late, but I have several 3-1/2 in floppies that I need to repair. I cut the film inside before tossing, then found my photo program didn't save them. Would splicing tape work...? Does anyone know of a program that reads the old Kodak discs that you got when developing film?

@LindenAshbyMK 2 года назад

Howdy. Can floppy disk still function properly without the tiny spring, holding back the metal cover?

@fft2020 11 месяцев назад

yes

@olepigeon 4 года назад

4:37 I would recommend single strokes from the hub to the outside of the disk. If there's debris on the disk itself, you could end up scratching the disk by moving it back and forth along the surface. I also had a disk where I attempted this trick, but it was a lost cause. The actual coating had flaked off, and cleaning it just removed the coating. It actually crashed the head on one of my floppy drives, which promptly scratched and destroyed the next disk that was inserted (I was backing up a bunch of vintage floppy disks.)

@jjohnson71958 3 года назад

i have a factory ned floppy diskette drive and i need silicone grease for it

@AndreaBordoni Год назад

Hi, what lube are you using? I'm not an expert, can you tell me the brand? A thousand thanks!

@sidsretrocorner Год назад

Hi Andrea, in this video I think I used just some pure Vaseline. Haven't had any problems with it... yet. There may be better options though.

@Bewefau 3 года назад

I think I might have had this exactly issue, Okay so I put in a new used floppy and it read my disk. Than when i tried to put my windows 98 boot disk in and tried to read that disk it said error. And now it says error on all my disk I try to use with it. So all those disk I put in the drive after it broke and those all bad now? I think I only tried 3 disk's should I throw those 3 disk's away?

@sidsretrocorner 3 года назад

Best thing you can do at the moment is clean the reader of your floppy drive because it might have because filthy due to one of those floppies and it is unable to read the others anymore. So, I recommend you uninstall the floppy drive, take it apart so that you can get to the reader/laser and clean it with a cotton swab and some cleaning alcohol. If all goes well, after you put it back together and reinstalled it, it will read the floppies again. Just don't use the one that was filthy else you can start all over again. That one floppy that caused the problems you could try and clean like I show in the video and hopefully it's enough to get out all the filth to be able to read again. Good luck!

@danielortizdecaracas Год назад

Please help me how to format 720 kb floppy disc

@MatthewRalston89 4 года назад

Thanks for the video, it helped us reskin a disk, but the data came off corrupted still

@sidsretrocorner 4 года назад

Hi Matthew, sorry to hear the data was still corrupt. My guess is some of the damage to the disk could be unfixable at some point. Unfortunately these type of storage was never going to last long due to it's magnetic nature. At some point it's going to deteriorate too much for it to work again.

@kajyakuzonik9130 3 года назад

@@sidsretrocorner interestingly, I have several 5.25" DD-floppies from the C64-era that still work today, but most of my CD's I burned in 98-00 are all unreadable by now.

@dennisdevine9563 4 года назад

What lubricate did you use on your floppy drive?

@sidsretrocorner 4 года назад

Hi Dennis, I used simple vaseline actually.

@dennisdevine9563 4 года назад

@@sidsretrocorner Thanks, I haven't had any luck getting my old or newer drives to recognize my old floppies

@sidsretrocorner 4 года назад

@@dennisdevine9563 Sorry to hear that! What kind of floppy drives are you using?

@WolfgangProductions 4 года назад

Vasiline Smears ALOT! , How did you remove it after applying it?

@WolfgangProductions 4 года назад

Does not Sound like a good cleaner IMO :(

@santi100a 3 года назад

I tried this procedure with one damaged floppy and ended up destroying it.

@jonascruz1820 Год назад

Hello, when trying to read a floppy disk it tells me that it has no format and to format it, I don't want to lose that information that it has inside, the disk is from 1996, I can do something to rescue that information safely. thank you

@santi100a 3 года назад

0:45 General failure reading drive A Abort, Retry, Fail?

@CrazyBossDK Год назад

I have a lot of floppies mostly HD 3.5" 1.44mb disks, all of them i tested failed, and the drive have been cleaned, i dont understand why, I tested with other drives and other computers so for me your trick didn work. I guess the disks was not stored the right way, thats sad I think i might have close to 1000 disks, which might not work...