Great find this, I just bought a floppy disc head cleaner of amazon and they sent me a normal floppy disk, the cheek. Just order the Camlab paper, so I can clean the heads of the Atari 1040 STE I just bought and solve the disk errors. Cheers Rob, you got a new subscription.
This exactly. Guess it's no trivial process... Other than just tweaking the screw one would also have to run it several times through some program like XCopy to see if the sectors are matching correctly I guess...
I have at least a dozen cleaning disks in 5-1/4" and 3.5" as I'm always on the lookout especially for new 'Old' Stock because they are fairly tough to come by. This Video is an excellent resource on how to never have to worry about dwindling options for cleaning disks...great job. -Mark.
New subscriber here! I too enjoyed the video. I'd like a video addressing "floppy detection" issues. During floppy I/O, my Amiga sometimes says I "must" re-insert the floppy although it's still in the drive and I haven't even touched the eject button. So far, I've yet to see a single TH-cam video discussing this. Thanks for considering it! 👍
Hi this is actually a really simple annoying thing and it happened to me. The little switches at the front of the drive, look like black or white posts connect to a switch. One is used to detect write protect, the other for the presence of a disk. Over time the switch contacts become dirty which is what causes this. You can clean them with contact cleaner, it’s tricky but can be done. I may do a video on this at some pojnt
I don't have a need for it - but because it is really interresting, and someone with the need might be looking in the future, I would like a video on how to align the heads 🙂
Thanks so much for this video i have ordered up the fillers to give it a go, also would like to know how you the alignment is done on the floppy drive and what the grease is used to service the drive and if oil is needed for the motor as well
recently I was looking for a cleaner disk on ebay, some available but they're like £30 range. I recently bought a brand new floppy drive for £14... so yeah some people are crazy
Thanks so much I hope u help I have some disk but my keyboard won't read them is show me on screen this different products does mean the type of the disk I'm using and can u please give website where I can buy disk from
@RobSmithDev thanks anyway coz I have disk they have information it's seems to be work coz sometimes they read out sometimes no can u please do us video on how to save disk into computer then install them into new disk
Can you use baby wipes instead of filter paper? I will always remember that exact capacity of a 1.44MB floppy without fail! 1,457,664 bytes! You can still do something meaningful with this much capacity, especially storing raw computer code.
Cleaning disks are ineffective at resolving a problem with a dirty head. They are intended to be used regularly on a clean head but one bad disk and it will undo all that preventative work. Cotton wool sticks are far more effective and you can buy them super cheap in the girls beauty section.
As a some-what expert with floppy disks they do work well, and have always worked for me. I agree that directly cleaning the head can work better or quicker, but these are great if you don’t want to take the drive apart.
@@RobSmithDev Cleaning disks have always worked? I've had several drives where cleaning disks have been a waste of time and the only way to get them working is with a cotton wool stick. Maybe it depends on the cause of the dirt. If it's just the gradual accumulation from usage maybe a cleaning disk would be fine but if it's an old dirty disk that has caused the problem then it's more likely to need cotton wool sticks.
floppy drives and it's media were never meant to last this long, but here we are 40 years later. But the media now is decaying to the point where the magnetic layer is stripping off the discs. You can have a brand new sealed in shrinkwrap boxed disks unopened and half of them refuse to format without bad sectors. That's discs that have had no use or wear with the drive head. No amount of cleaning is going to fix this. The drives themselves can have restorative maintainance replacing caps, regreasing worm screws and head cleaning, but the media for them is becoming increasingly unusable over time. Someone needs to start a kickstarter and re-manufacture some new media theres no other way around this.
@@RobSmithDev 5.25 disks were generally more robust despite the lack of protection encasement offered by 3.5". Lower density and better materials before everything started to go cheap mid 90s
Yes please would love an alignment video
I’ve added this to my list! Thanks for watching
I would find a drive head alignment video very helpful. Thank you
Great find this, I just bought a floppy disc head cleaner of amazon and they sent me a normal floppy disk, the cheek. Just order the Camlab paper, so I can clean the heads of the Atari 1040 STE I just bought and solve the disk errors. Cheers Rob, you got a new subscription.
:) thank you
Great video, will be happy to see how to align the head
I’ll put it on my list
This exactly. Guess it's no trivial process... Other than just tweaking the screw one would also have to run it several times through some program like XCopy to see if the sectors are matching correctly I guess...
I have at least a dozen cleaning disks in 5-1/4" and 3.5" as I'm always on the lookout especially for new 'Old' Stock because they are fairly tough to come by. This Video is an excellent resource on how to never have to worry about dwindling options for cleaning disks...great job. -Mark.
Glad to be of help. Thanks for watching
great awesome video - as always. you would love to see the alignment video - because FLOPPY DISKS ROCK!
Thanks - it’s now working it’s way up my list!
i love this idea..
Thank you very much. I was using floppy disks earlier today
You’re welcome
Very handy! I've been looking for these disks you found but could never find anything that would work. This looks perfect! Thanks Rob!
No problem hope they prove useful. They got lots of use at Kickstart01!
Drive cleaning video, please!
Also, Mr. Algorithm, please notice this channel! ;)
New subscriber here! I too enjoyed the video. I'd like a video addressing "floppy detection" issues. During floppy I/O, my Amiga sometimes says I "must" re-insert the floppy although it's still in the drive and I haven't even touched the eject button. So far, I've yet to see a single TH-cam video discussing this. Thanks for considering it! 👍
Hi this is actually a really simple annoying thing and it happened to me. The little switches at the front of the drive, look like black or white posts connect to a switch. One is used to detect write protect, the other for the presence of a disk. Over time the switch contacts become dirty which is what causes this. You can clean them with contact cleaner, it’s tricky but can be done. I may do a video on this at some pojnt
Great hack Rob, I just made one and used small amount of PVA glue and it works really well :)
Fantastic!
I don't have a need for it - but because it is really interresting, and someone with the need might be looking in the future, I would like a video on how to align the heads 🙂
I’ll put it on my list
Thanks so much for this video i have ordered up the fillers to give it a go, also would like to know how you the alignment is done on the floppy drive and what the grease is used to service the drive and if oil is needed for the motor as well
I’ll do a follow up video soon then, thanks for watching and hope it’s helpful
recently I was looking for a cleaner disk on ebay, some available but they're like £30 range. I recently bought a brand new floppy drive for £14... so yeah some people are crazy
Those floppy disk drives are not so scary now.....thank you
You’re welcome
Thanks so much I hope u help I have some disk but my keyboard won't read them is show me on screen this different products does mean the type of the disk I'm using and can u please give website where I can buy disk from
Hi, sorry I’m not sure I understand what you are asking?
@RobSmithDev thanks anyway coz I have disk they have information it's seems to be work coz sometimes they read out sometimes no can u please do us video on how to save disk into computer then install them into new disk
Hi. Where can I get the cleaning fabric from. Thanks in advance ?
Hi, it’s Camlab 1171054 Grade 601 Filter Paper, 85 mm: amzn.to/3NtkrmS
Can you use baby wipes instead of filter paper?
I will always remember that exact capacity of a 1.44MB floppy without fail!
1,457,664 bytes!
You can still do something meaningful with this much capacity, especially storing raw computer code.
Ever tried it but I suspect they’ll be too soft and might get stuck. Plus I don’t know what may be in them chemical wise
I want you to cover how to realign the drive in a future video
😃it’s on my list now
Unfortunately I have a broken magnetic strip in my old Floppy Drive so I can't do anything with it.
Magnetic strip?
show how to align
Cleaning disks are ineffective at resolving a problem with a dirty head. They are intended to be used regularly on a clean head but one bad disk and it will undo all that preventative work. Cotton wool sticks are far more effective and you can buy them super cheap in the girls beauty section.
As a some-what expert with floppy disks they do work well, and have always worked for me.
I agree that directly cleaning the head can work better or quicker, but these are great if you don’t want to take the drive apart.
@@RobSmithDev Cleaning disks have always worked? I've had several drives where cleaning disks have been a waste of time and the only way to get them working is with a cotton wool stick. Maybe it depends on the cause of the dirt. If it's just the gradual accumulation from usage maybe a cleaning disk would be fine but if it's an old dirty disk that has caused the problem then it's more likely to need cotton wool sticks.
floppy drives and it's media were never meant to last this long, but here we are 40 years later. But the media now is decaying to the point where the magnetic layer is stripping off the discs. You can have a brand new sealed in shrinkwrap boxed disks unopened and half of them refuse to format without bad sectors. That's discs that have had no use or wear with the drive head. No amount of cleaning is going to fix this. The drives themselves can have restorative maintainance replacing caps, regreasing worm screws and head cleaning, but the media for them is becoming increasingly unusable over time. Someone needs to start a kickstarter and re-manufacture some new media theres no other way around this.
Its weird, the older the disk I have are, the better they are holding up! but yes, could do with them being mae somewhere
@@RobSmithDev 5.25 disks were generally more robust despite the lack of protection encasement offered by 3.5". Lower density and better materials before everything started to go cheap mid 90s