help! how to recover water logged floppies?

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----- From: cctalk-admin(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-admin@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Erik S. Klein Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 2:37 PM To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: RE: help! how to recover water logged floppies? 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----- From: cctalk-admin(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-admin@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chandra Bajpai Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 10:56 AM To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: RE: help! how to recover water logged floppies? How do you clean the media itself? Will a clean paper towel work or is some other procedure required? Thanks, Chandra -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-admin(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-admin@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Erik S. Klein Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 12:30 PM To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: RE: help! how to recover water logged floppies? 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: cctalk-admin(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-admin@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chandra Bajpai Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 6:07 AM To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: help! how to recover water logged floppies? 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