Floppy disc drive cleaning

The cleaning kit from CJE micro’s has arrived!

…worked like a charm, I dutifully followed the instructions. No grey trails left on the cleaner, but it’ll have been the first time in over 30 years the heads have been cleaned - yikes!

Nice to see CJE running it as rental - these kits are hard to come by, and at £50 for something that’s rare and unlikely to be used again, renting it is a good idea - there’s more to go around 5.25” drive owners, and fewer left on a someone’s shelf when it could be put to good use.

Right then, now to use the cleaning frame from 8 bit heaven. Arrived fine, instructions need a refresh (all good, except the explanation of how to place the disc to open the metal door - that’s for 3.5” floppies - but the rest of the guide was spot on for 5.25”).

So, what to try. I have a lot of floppy discs to try - but the root of this endeavour is Vertigo! So, I started with an old backup, that - worst case - won’t be a problem if it failed . It looks like this with a floppy disc in it, ready to gently rotate and rub (photo is post-clean - a backup disc of the BBC Master variant of Vertigo):

Spray isopropyl alcohol onto cleaning cloth [keeping window open - this stuff is poisonous, not ideal to breath it in], fit disc, rotate whilst gently rubbing the disc surface as it rotates. I did two rotations, then rotated a further two times to let the alcohol evaporate.

Foolishly, I forgot to photograph the disc before, only after cleaning. I’ll take a snap if I can capture the mould - its not easy to spot (need to catch the light on it).

However, disc popped into the Opus Challenger drive, and fired up - works like a charm! One *VERIFY 0 and *VERIFY 2 later:

Bellisimo! Now onto Opus DDOS to ADFS transfer!