> I have some very old (12-15 years) 3.5" floppy disks I'm trying to
> read. I have the original system where they were created but about 50%
> are showing enough errors to make them unreadable. The disks are single
> side Microbee CP/M format (bonus points to anyone except Gordon Rowell
> who remembers what a Microbee is!)
> 
> I'm looking for suggestions on how I might go about cleaning the drives
> and disk to reduce the number of errors. The disks have been stored in
> disk boxes in what passes for my office at home, so they haven't had
> any special treatment like air conditioned storage, unfortunately.
> 
I know it sounds horrible, but I take a new clean disk, squirt some alcohole
based detergent / cleaner like a spray and wipe into the open slider slot
right onto the brown rust / plastic floppy it self, and hand spin it a few
times to spread the liquid a bit, then throw it into the drive and access it
a few times, then remove that disk, throw it out as dead, give it a few mins
and throw in the disk giving errors.

Try reading a zero risk test disk first - drop files onto a trashable disk
to check that it's reading ok from your test disk after the MungeClean AKA
DezCleaningDisk of course.

Works a charm for old Mac's when I refurb them and give them to kids for
home computers, and I've never managed to kill a drive yet ( well, not one
that wasn't dead already that is ).

Dez Blanchfield <Dez@CradleTechnologies.COM>