Diskette recovery by soapy-water / dehydration / cyclomethicone or Teflon ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Edited by Herb Johnson, last edit July 5 2022 (c) copyright 2022 copyright of quotes by those quoted. retrotechnology.com Background ----------- "baking" tapes or diskettes The idea of subjecting magnetic media to heat, is to reform or restore the condition of the "binder". That's the material the magnetic bits (iron oxide or other metals) are carried in and hold it in place. It's a kind of paint - often made from epoxy. So the media coating is a binder for the magnetic particles which perform the recording. However, one must avoid temperatures that stress the plastic tape or diskette material. Often it's Mylar, but tapes particularly of age, can be made from other plastics. - Herb lubricants The magnetic coating materials, include lubricants, of course to smooth friction with the read/write magnetic heads. The lubricant is a patent or trade secret; it was often described as a "fatty acid". Over decades, the lubricants dry out. If cleaning is too aggressive, it may remove lubricants. So some methods of diskette recovery include the careful use of a lubricant. Some reference is made to use of Teflon, also called PTFE; it can be rubbed on in solid form. Not much at all is needed. Since about 2020, some have tried cyclomethicone, which is a volitile and slippery chemical used in cosmetics. Less than a drop per side is sufficient. Beware! it's flammable. Please read the label and Safety Data Sheets. Cleaning media of mold and debris The mildest cleaner is simply water with some soap, then rinced off. A more aggressive cleaner is isopropyl alcohol (IPA). Some dipute use of alcohol, it risks damaging the media's binder, by friction or by solution. When mold is stubborn and disks are to be read once, some aggression may prove necessary. Eyeglass cleaning wipes and cloths are less scratchy than cotton. Others dispute this and favor water. Dehydration after washing seems prudent. - Herb Johnson July 2022 Craig Andrews - On water / soap / dehydration ------------------------------------- June 20 2022: From my bumbling experience there are diskettes that look good but just waiting to coat my heads with oxide. Those may benefit from some sort of lubricant but mostly need to rebind the oxide to the media. I am not sure if it makes a difference, but I have taken up the superstition of baking tapes and disks in a food dehydrator for a few days first. Then there are those floppies that have visible bio-growth going on. These I first dehydrate them, then remove from jacket and use soap and water to clean, then dehydrate again, back in sleeve. I do not know if this is effective but it lets me feel like I tried something and I don't think I am doing harm. I am not looking for rapid results. So [in a consumer food dehydrator] I do a safe, low temperature bake [of floppy diskettes, in the sleve / envelope, ] for a long time. I have it in a little area with a dehumidifier running at full tilt. It runs at 100F - 110F for at least a week to drive out any moisture. I often put them in and let them desiccate however long it is until I get back to that project. It is not a good dehydrator so there's quite a bit of temperature swings. At 110F I don't think there is a maximum time limit since it is within their storage temperature range. If there is any sort of growth and I need to clean the disk, I cut open the sleeve [to extract the disk medium]. I use a piece of glass (just float glass) [as a cleaning surface}; and distilled water with dish soap (dawn usually). I would say 1/4 teaspoon per cup, no more than I want to rinse off, but enough to be very slippery and carry crud away. On to the soapy wet glass plate. I use my finger with a little cloth lens cleaning wipe my wife gets with her eye glasses. Everything wet & soapy before touching the disk. Both sides and finally repeated rinsing with warm distilled water. Then lay [the disk medium] on a microfiber cloth to air dry. Often I can still see something on the surface when it drie. If so I may try washing again if I feel I am making progress. Sometimes if the tip of my finger is nice and smooth and cleaning is not going great, I will use my finger to wipe and feel the surface to see if I should give up. I am trying to find a good method for 9 track [digital magnetic] tapes. I bake them like floppies, but I am not sure it is helping. I know it isn't completely solving the sticky mag tape problem, but not sure how much it really helping. I am going to try cyclomethicone [as suggested] for the little extra lubrication. Craig in response to follow-up questions: For the temperature set point, I had a box of disks that put the storage temperature max at 120F which was my indication that they could stay in the deydrator indefinitely at that temperature. I am basically using the dehumidifier dehydrator as a desiccation chamber to decrease the relative humidity which I believe is the real problem, I.e., water uptake in the binder or oxide. I am sure the factory uses deionized water and all sorts of surfactants in floppy disk manufacturing which is why I believe there is little or no risk to the s surface using distilled water and dish soap. I mentioned the surface needs to be slippery because there is no easier way to tell that there is enough surfactant to release the contaminant and hold it in suspension until it is washed away. I pretty much continually add the soapy water to carry away the crud. The water is always warm since that enhances its effectiveness in both washing and rinsing. I trust optical cleaning cloths much more than qtips. Cotton is abrasive. Not as bad as paper tissues, of course, but cotton is more abrasive than cloths designed for acrylic lenses [on eyeglasses]. I think a clean and flat work surface is important which is why I use a piece of glass. (Actually a shelf from a little dorm refrigerator since it has a frame to protect the edges and make it easier to pick off the counter because the water underneath makes it hard to remove unless it is slid off the edge). I am not sure if floppies were made to require a lubricant or surface treating like Teflon, but I do not see the harm if used in moderation. (As long a= as it does not degrade the magnetic material binder or clog the head.). Nonetheless, I plan on trying cyclomethicone, especially on 9 track. [On cleaning the floppy drives themselves:] I have a pair of drives that are mounted such that I can easily and frequently clean the heads without removing anything or any appreciable effort. For this I use Qtips and isopropyl alcohol. If there is any squealing from the drive when the head is engaged, I manually open the drive immediately to stop the head from scraping off any more oxide and I thoroughly clean the head. [There's a different sound between the head squealing and the rotating hub squealing.] Regards, Craig ========================= Chuck Guzis on cyclomethicone and Teflon ---------------------------------------- * in a post Apr 2020 in a vcfed.org discussion: > Chuck, what's the purpose of the cyclomethicone? Does it act as a lubricant for the head or does it actually stabilize the oxide layer somehow? It's an inert lubricant that is also somewhat volatile. One needs only a drop or to to make a film on a floppy. After the disk has been read, the cyclomethicone evaporates, leaving the disk in its original condition. It's very slick, being a silicone-type (siloxane) lube, so don't pour any on the floor, unless you want to create a slip-n-slide. It's nontoxic and safe to use--you'll find it in lotions and hair treatments, particularly hair de-tanglers. Very popular with the equestrian crowd as well, being a treatment to dress up a horse's mane and tail. - Chuck * In another post by Chuck in 2014, in an audio forum on 9-track magnetic tapes: I would keep clear from anything containing silicone unless there is no other option and I have checked experimentally that it will work and I won't need the tape afterwards. Silicone is next to impossible to remove once applied, and tends to deposit on everything that the tape touches, including parts of the tape transport. Proper friction is no longer guaranteed in particular, think capstan/pinch roller or whatever plays the same role. The Ampex/Nagra VPR5 is a very peculiar case, I wouldn't trust their specific head cleaner on anything else. Clearly, if a tape 'sticks" to itself while despooling, the result will be transmitted to the buffer feed loop and mayhem results--it usually isn't a pretty picture before the drive electronics determine that something is wrong. So lubricating the tape itself is important--it really needs to be slippery as a greased snake. :) Another consideration is that these are old archives--unlike audio tape, once you've read the tape successfully, you can bin it--there's nothing more to be gained by reading it again. The goal is to find a way to apply a very thin layer of lubricant to the tape so that the tape can despool without sticking to itself. I ran across a 1957 patent that used a solid cylinder or sleeve of PTFE as a way to supply lubrication to tape as it passed. I have no idea of what the exact composition of the PTFE cylinder was, but doubt that it was ordinary solid Teflon. * June 2020: I (Herb) asked Chuck for further comments. He replied: Just remember that a little cyclo goes a long way--it has a very low surface tension and tends to spread on its own. After using it on [magnetic] tapes, I have to clean off the drive bits, such as the takeup reel; and any friction rollers. Otherwise the tape slips and gives garbage results (at best). I don't know about Teflon--my results using PTFE lubes for mechanical things have been mixed. I think that the original lube on media was a fatty acid. I do recall that both Verbatim and Kodak introduced Teflon-coated floppy disks in the 1980s, but I don't know if that trend persisted or if competing manufacturers ever adopted the process. Verbatim called them "Datalife Plus" and they were considerably more expensive than standard floppies. I recall that Kodak-branded floppies even advertised a free data recovery service for a time, should any of their floppies fail. That one didn't last long... - Chuck Cyclomethicone vs Dimethicone ----------------------------- I've not personally evaluated dimethicone on floppy disks. Here's some descriptions found on the Web. Always refer to Safety Data Sheet for any chemical you buy. - Herb The main difference between cyclomethicones and dimethicone is that cyclomethicone has the ability to evaporate from the skin where dimethicone does not. This allows cyclomethicones to be a better carrier to deliver key ingredients to the skin. Dimethicone and cyclomethicone are useful and well-loved skin care ingredient derived from silicone. Dimethicone works in skin care as both a partial occlusive and an emollient (moisturizing) ingredient. - dermitology product review Web site Dimethicone and cyclomethicone are useful and well-loved skin care ingredients derived from silicone. Dimethicone works in skin care as both a partial occlusive and an emollient (moisturizing) ingredient. - a Web site for skin care Lotioncrafter LLC, LC995; label - 8 ounce jug of cyclopenasiloxane or Cyclomethicone. Label says "flash point 171 degrees F. At temperatures above 300 degrees F can form formaldehyde vapors." Also usual cautions about keeping out of eyes or swallowing. ---------------------------