Post #1931306

2026-05-01 21:37 UTC

I need some floppy imaging advice. I have a Greaseweazle connected to a 3.5&quot; drive. But the floppies I have to image are a bit fragile. When I try to read a whole disk, the first few tracks read fine, but then it starts getting more and more scratchy as it goes, so much so that it starts destroying the disk surface. If I clean the heads, its fine again, for a little while. Is there a way I can read a few tracks at a time so that I can clean the heads in between? Or is there another approach I can use to read these disks?

Replies (3)

@SuperDicq@minidisc.tokyo 2026-05-01 23:58

@TomGwozdz@oldbytes.space I'm just going to assume that the drive you have it connected to is not in the best shape and the best solution is probably to get a different one. I believe with greaseweazle there is a --track option that you can use to only get a few tracks, then use clean and get the next set of tracks.

Open ##2797170
@jope@mastodon.social 2026-05-02 08:31

@TomGwozdz@oldbytes.space you're going to need to start experimenting with gentle baking, similar to what they do with old audio tapes in music studios. We have used a vegetable dryer (dehydrator) for cassettes and floppies with some positive results

Open ##2797174
@pdevine@sfba.social 2026-05-02 16:08

@TomGwozdz@oldbytes.space your disk likely has grown some mold on the surface. Disks shipped with lubricants that turned into the ideal mold growing medium. It can be hard to see with the naked eye. If you clean the disk with a small amount of dish detergent and water, let it dry. Then apply a small amount of cyclomethicone as a lubricant I’ve been able to recover stubborn disks. The reason you’re having trouble is the mold builds up on the read wrote head and starts to physically scratch off the recording medium. One bad disk can accumulate a bunch of stuff on the read write head such that it will ruin other clean disks later. Definitely clean the heads after using a bad disk. There’s cleaning tips on the applesauce docs here https://wiki.applesaucefdc.com/doku.php?id=adv:cleaning

Open ##2797176