Trying to clean mold from a floppy disk (Amiga - Blood Money)

In this video, I try to resurrect my Amiga Blood Money floppy disk by cleaning the mold from the surface with water.
Chapters:
0:00 Blood Money Disk
1:06 Cleaning
7:11 Amiga Drive Read Test
8:03 Booting Blood Money
9:17 Retest Amiga Drive
9:48 Conclusion
Music:
'A Saturday Night' by Chris Huelsbeck, used under a royalty-free license, please visit / chris_huelsbeck for more info!
Links:
Blood Money Disk Boots One Last Time - • Amiga A600 Floppy Swap...

[@marioserrano5087]

Nice video. Commodore Amiga for ever!

[@DavePoo2]

Forever unless eaten by mould / mold

[@daishi5571]

If you crack open a floppy you will see that it is a plastic shell with a cloth insert then the magnetic media. Mould requires moisture to grow so only cleaning with water may work short term, but long would probably be detrimental because you made the cloth wet thus feeding it. Isopropanol alcohol is effective at killing mold although I'm unsure what % is the best to use I personally have been using 50% recently to clean discs, followed by a lengthy wait for drying. As a side note I also recently made a separate box to store my floppies. It actually started when I made a dry box for my filament 3D printer (humidity in Florida is such it gets absorbed into the filament) and a few days later I get a new game for my Amiga "Flight Simulator II" and the disk had obvious dirt/mould/whatever on the media so after cleaning it, my brain clicked thinking if I made a dry box for floppies, mould couldn't affect them. So one plastic box with a seal from Walmart, 1 KG Silica crystals, computer fan and about 30 mins it was done (but unfortunately my brain won't let it go so I think I'm going to made a more specialized case)

[@DavePoo2]

Have you ever managed to get a disk that was bad as the one I have and actually make it work again?

[@stevethepocket]

I was gonna say, microfloppies can be disassembled and reassembled, so the proper way to clean one-if one exists-would have been to take the platter out and clean it by itself so it can dry before it goes back in.

[@daishi5571]

@@stevethepocket I've had couple issues with disassembling floppies. The flap bends in the process of removal (not a problem with the plastic ones but they seem rather rare) and defies bending them back correctly and this means it gets jammed in the drive upon reassembly. Sometimes they glue (instead of press fit) the plastic case and the only way to open is to break it. Now the flap issue can be ignored by not bothering to replace it, as long as you look after the disc making sure it doesn't get touched when stored. I was taking a look at a disk and wondering if I could make a replacement flap and maybe even the case on a 3D Printer could be interesting and maybe even customize it.

[@daishi5571]

@@DavePoo2 I have one (Team Yankee) that the surface looks like a plow was used to read it and still somehow works. The worst disk I have cleaned was Vista Pro as it had a chalky white deposit all the way around. I was lucky I didn't just insert it in the drive, as when I unpacked the package the flap had been jarred partially opened so I was going to just flick it open and closed and that's when I saw the mess. That took a while being very careful but the disc does work and looks fine.

[@bordellobrotherz]

My disks were stored in garden sheds or lofts for nearly 30 years. I tried to get some to work and also killed off several floppy drives in the process. If I feel nostalgic now I use a Gotek. Adding a small speaker even gives disks loading noises.

[@DavePoo2]

Yeah, that copy of blood money spent several years in a loft. I do understand why people use gotek as the floppies are a pain, but I agree that the floppy is a big part of the experience of retro machines.

[@its-a-retro-thing]

IPA is the way to go. With a 3d printed cage to hold the disc while you spin it with a little handle thing. Restored many Archimedes discs this way and they do seem to stay fixed after being done. Alternatively pull the disc apart and replace the media with another disc internal - at least you have the original printed case still.

[@DavePoo2]

I could still try the IPA, but I didn't like the sound the disk was making when spinning, so I figured it was too far gone.

[@its-a-retro-thing]

@@DavePoo2 probably right in that case. No point wrecking a drive in the process

[@fredsmith1970]

would IPA (Isopropyl alcohol not Indian Pale Ale) work?

[@DavePoo2]

I did initially plan to give that a go afterwards if the water didn't work, but I decided to quit as I think that disk is a gonner. That noise it's making is not good.

[@fredsmith1970]

@@DavePoo2 IPA evaporates much more quickly than water does... so hopefully you'd have no moisture left on the disk platter.

[@timetorelaxfocus9642]

I had no idea floppies could gather modl and you could use water on them.

[@DavePoo2]

Yes they can, so store them in a dry place. Can you use water to clean them? yes. Does it work? maybe?

[@geertjalink]

The mould is inside the hardcover in the soft sleeves and it can spread to other floppies perhaps.

[@DavePoo2]

You could be right. These 2 floppies are stored in the box on their own, so they shouldn't infect anything else.

[@geertjalink]

@@DavePoo2 👍

[@timetorelaxfocus9642]

Nice effort on attempting to restore the floppy, the scratch may have been the issue, I'm not sure we know if the cleaning would have had a positive or negative impact yet.

[@DavePoo2]

Well, I tried my best. I was hoping the game might load and at least show some graphics, but just a black screen, so too much data has gone missing from that disk I think

[@galois19]

Crack open the disk case and swap the internal media with a copied disk?

[@DavePoo2]

I could try that. I've never cracked one of these open before. If I were to do that, I'd like to get a pristine copy of the original (not a cracked version).

[@stevethepocket]

@@DavePoo2 There's the rub, isn't it. It's only ever cracks that get uploaded to the archive sites. I wonder if that's because they figure the cracked ones are just the best version of the game (since they usually come with cheat options, lack of copy-protection quizzes that require a manual or feelies, etc.) or if there genuinely so few non-pirated copies out in the wild to get rips _from._

[@timetorelaxfocus9642]

What do you think about Dan Woods take on this topic? : Is AROS The Future of Amiga?

[@DavePoo2]

I'm really amazed that people have made an OS that is that good, and with that level of Amiga compatibility. Just not sure where it fits in, I'm certainly not going to uninstall windows to use it, and the Amiga's that I have, I'm happy with the OS they have (i've only got WorkBench 2 on my Amiga 600). So AROS doesn't seem that popular, but I can see why. Even Linux is having a hard time breaking in as a desktop platform.

[@timetorelaxfocus9642]

​@@DavePoo2 Linux appears to be good at the functional level but hasn't reached the masses. Amiga did reach the people with a flexible & intuitive UI. Together, they have a chance, however, people are resistant to change. At least it has the potential to compete, especially supporting more than just Amiga. Raspberry Pi and Arm were a couple of the other supported platforms mentioned.

[@evilcraftknife5705]

M O U L D please Dave, you're English.

[@DavePoo2]

I never was sure about the correct spelling on that one

[@DavePoo2]

I do however like to spell colour as "color", as the first place I saw that was using Atari BASIC back in the day.

[@evilcraftknife5705]

@@DavePoo2 There's a place in Wales named Mold.

[@DavePoo2]

@@evilcraftknife5705 Is it a nice place?

[@evilcraftknife5705]

@@DavePoo2 Doesn't sound like it.

[@AmigaWolf]

I used 99.9% isopropyl alcohol to clean my 35+ years old C64 floppy's, and they now all work perfect again. Never use water to clean it, same for tapes and VHS tapes, the dust filters in the floppy's/disk's will become sponzen if you use water, and that is never a good thing, and you can destroy your equipment.

[@DavePoo2]

Yeah, the water could get into the cleaning pad inside the disk and just get damp and cause even more mould. I did think that at the time, but I think this disk was already too far gone to save. It could be worth more investigation in the future. Others have said that IPA is too harsh for the disk surface, but perhaps that's all just speculation.

[@AmigaWolf]

@@DavePoo2 My floppy's still works after a few years i used 99.9% isopropyl alcohol to clean them, so yeah it looks like IPA does no damage.