Subject: help! how to recover water logged floppies?

From: "Chandra Bajpai" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 20 08:10:00 2003

I had a small accident in my basement a couple of days ago and in
cleaning everything out I discovered an old box of 5.25 TRS-80/Heathkit
floppies with all my old stuff on them were damp with water.  I let them
air dry overnight, but some of them still don't spin freely.
 
What can I do to recover these disks - I hate to lose them. What sort of
damage does water cause to floppies?
 
Thanks,
Chandra

---

From: Marion Bates <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 20 08:32:00 2003

Bummer! Well, dunno if this will be helpful to you or not, but we had a 
zillion 3.5" floppies from 1984 (first Mac) and they got immersed in 
water during Hurricane Andrew in 1992...they didn't work at all, so 
figuring we had nothing to lose, I slit the labels, popped 'em apart, 
and removed the disk itself, wiped down both surfaces with Q-tips and 
rubbing alcohol. Then I took new floppies and disassembled them, tossed 
the blank media, and put the old disk inside the case...taped back 
together, and almost all of them worked well enough to recover the 
data. The real issue seemed to be that the two paper pads swelled and 
wrinkled, then dried, depositing lint on the disk surface and impeding 
spin. The disks themselves seemed to weather the water fine.

(The Mac itself survived Andrew also -- I still have it. Only hurricane 
damage was a couple dead keyswitches on the keyboard, I replaced those 
and all's well -- 11 years later.  :)  If only the roof had been so 
durable...)

Good luck...

-- MB

---

From: Stan Barr <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 20 09:43:00 2003

Hi,

> damage does water cause to floppies?

I had something similar happen many years ago.  I removed damaged disks
from their sleeves, washed and dried them, and put each in turn into
a clean new sleeve which I'd cut open and removed the disk from.  
This let me copy all the data off the damaged disks.  Of course all the 
disks were then scrap, but the data was saved onto new disks.

-- 
Cheers,
Stan Barr  [email-masked]

The future was never like this!

---

From: "TeoZ" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 20 10:02:00 2003

I think the 5.25 floppies are far more forgiving to abuse then the newer
higher density disks. I noticed even under normal use 3.5 HD disk will lose
some data after 8 yrs while my older C64 era 5.25's still work fine copy
protection and all.

I have also recovered disks that have been dropped in the snow/slush over a
weekend and they worked fine once they dried out. If they have dirt/sand you
have to clean the media before you even try to run them or they will get
scratched.

---

From: "Erik S. Klein" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 20 11:32:00 2003

The suggestion to remove the disks from the damaged sleeves, clean the
media carefully and then place them in a "new" sleeve for data recovery
is good.

I did the same with some PC disks a dozen years ago or more and had no
difficulties with any of the media.

When I was done I tried a little experiment and placed the media alone
in the drive without a sleeve.  It worked that was as well, although I
wouldn't recommend it for more then entertainment value.  I can imagine
the flex on the disk isn't good for it. . .

Good luck!

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On Behalf Of Chandra Bajpai
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 6:07 AM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: help! how to recover water logged floppies?

 
Thanks,
Chandra

---

From: "Chandra Bajpai" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 20 12:58:00 2003

How do you clean the media itself? Will a clean paper towel work or is
some other procedure required?

Thanks,
Chandra

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On Behalf Of Erik S. Klein
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 12:30 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: RE: help! how to recover water logged floppies?

Good luck!

-----Original Message-----

 
Thanks,
Chandra

---

From: [email-masked] (Tony Duell)
Date: Sun Apr 20 13:31:08 2003

> What can I do to recover these disks - I hate to lose them. What sort of

The best way to do it is to _carefully_ slit open the jacket along one 
side and extract the media. Clean that carefully (with propan-2-ol, for 
example), and slip it into a slit-open jacket obtained from a disk that's 
not waterlogged. Of course make sure you get the media in the right way 
up.

Once you've done this, make a backup of the disk, of course.

-tony

---

From: [email-masked] (Tony Duell)
Date: Sun Apr 20 13:34:40 2003

> in the drive without a sleeve.  It worked that was as well, although I

This is commonly called 'mounting a naked floppy' :-). I've done it too. 
It's easiest if you have the drive out of its case, so you can carefully 
feed the disk in and centre it over the spindle.

> the flex on the disk isn't good for it. . .

Well, it works well enough for you to make a backup of the disk, which is 
all I'd want to do with any potentially damaged media....

-tony

---

From: "Erik S. Klein" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 20 13:39:00 2003

When I did this all of the disk jackets were still wet.  I used a clean,
lint free drying cloth from my collection of car-care products (I don't
remember what they were called, exactly, but they are basically a
synthetic lint-free chamois) and blotted each disk carefully.  Once they
were blotted as thoroughly as possible I let them air dry for an hour or
two (as I extracted and removed the other wet media) and then checked
for water spots.  I buffed those very gently with the same cloth which
was then slightly damp.

I then slid the media into a fresh jacket and everything was fine to do
a quick disk copy.  If I remember correctly I used one of the more error
tolerant aftermarket disk copy programs (CopyIIPC or something like it)
just in case.  

Once I was done with the whole pile I'm pretty sure I used a head
cleaner to make sure I didn't damage the drive.  Of course, I then put
the naked media in that same drive so how careful was I really? :)

   Erik

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 10:56 AM

Thanks,
Chandra

-----Original Message-----

Good luck!

-----Original Message-----

 
Thanks,
Chandra

---

From: "Jeffrey S. Worley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 20 13:53:01 2003

I've used the same methods to recover damaged floppies.  If a sleeve is
'bent' and won't let a disk spin freely within it, this is the way to
go.

A little tip for 5.25" and 8" disks that fail at spots is to put a 'tab'
of tape at the exposed end of the disk so that is protrudes through the
drive's face.  Read the sectors that are giving you trouble over and
over using a very tolerant and configurable copy program, or write your
own little sector getter program.  Tug on the tape off and on with
different amounts of force as the machine is reading the sector in
question.  Keep this up til' you give up or the sector is read.

What this does is both vary the drive's rotational speed whilst reading
as well as warping the disk a teensy bit thus changing the bearing on
the head(s) a teensy bit.

I've also used this method to produce 'bad' sectors to duplicate simple
copy protection schemes. Write a program that repeatedly writes and
reads the sector in question. When the just-written sector is not
readable without tugging on the disk again, you are in business for a
bad sector.  It really works.

Regards,

jeff

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 2:37 PM

   Erik

-----Original Message-----

Thanks,
Chandra

-----Original Message-----

Good luck!

-----Original Message-----

 
Thanks,
Chandra

---

From: Stan Barr <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 20 14:19:00 2003

Hi,

> some other procedure required?

I think I just washed the disks in clean water to remove any marks
and hung them up to air dry.   Paper towels might be a little abrasive,
they are made of wood.   Soft cotton would probably be better if any
rubbing is needed.  
-- 
Cheers,
Stan Barr  [email-masked]

---

From: Kevin Handy <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 20 15:39:01 2003

>all I'd want to do with any potentially damaged media....
It's much easier to deal with them in a sleeve.

You only need to sacrifice one floppy for the sleeve, as you can
reuse it for all the floppies stripped of their skins.

---

From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 20 16:12:00 2003

> bad sector.  It really works.

It's generally easier to just find and remove the copy protection ;)

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger                http://www.vintage.org

 * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

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From: [email-masked] (Tony Duell)
Date: Sun Apr 20 16:26:48 2003

[Mounting a naked floppy]

> It's much easier to deal with them in a sleeve.

The last time I had to do this, it was to recover a student's disk that 
had been seriously crushed between pages of a book in his backpack. I 
didn't happen to have a spare 5.25" disk with me either, so I couldn't 
easily make a sleeve. On the other hand, I could upload the files (once 
recovered) onto a larger machine until said student had some new media to 
store them on.

> reuse it for all the floppies stripped of their skins.

Sure...

-tony

---

From: "R. D. Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Apr 20 22:07:01 2003

> air dry overnight, but some of them still don't spin freely.

Did you open the jackets to allow them to dry, and attempt to clean
the floppies?  If not, think of all of the contaminants that may have
been in the water (if it was a water leak or flooding, etc.).

> damage does water cause to floppies?

In some cases, none.  E.g., cleaning dirty floppy media with distilled
water and putting them in new jackets.  Of course, if they don't dry,
the dreaded 'm' word (mildew) can set in.  Perhaps you just need to
disassemble the floppies, give them a good cleaning with distilled
water, then hang them by the holes in a reasonably warm location
that's well-lit. ventilated and dust-free.  Perhaps clean the jackets
as well, or, better yet, replace them.

Good luck!

-- 
Copyright (C) 2003 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: 
All Rights Reserved            an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & 
[email-masked]  410-744-4900  her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.org         beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.