Disk drive 5.25 problem...

[Astharot]

Hello everyone.. i asked an help for this situation.. i try at copy/dump my old ti99 collection from 5.25 floppy to 3.5 and create a dump image for emulator. My problem is this.. the disk drive read correct the floppy 1-2 time, and after no check more the floppy. This happen when i used very old floppy. I think that heads are go out aligment.. I try first at format a new floppy and rebuild a 5.25 disk from a dump.. i used Titanium how test and go all ok. I after started at read the old floppy for create a backup, but the floppy drive no have success at read well all the disk. For test i try at read again Titanium floppy and no read more.. then the old floppy had go in crash the disk drive.. Now the question.. exist a program for ti99 that put the head of floppy drive in correct mode or clean it If everyone had this problem ad fix .. can explaine how do? Otherwise i start at think that i lost all my original TI99 floppy collection... :-(

Thanks

[Stuart]

An old disk shouldn't have affected the head alignment, but it may have made the heads dirty. You should be able to gently clean them using a long cotton bud (used for cleaning babies ears and so on) and some (pure) isopropyl alcohol. Or get a 5.25" disk cleaner from e-bay (something like <http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-5-1-4-FLOPPY-CLEANER-AND-3-1-2-FLOPPY-DISK-DRIVE-WET-DRY-HEAD-CLEANER-/141071603708?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20d885d7fc>).

[Omega-TI]

Dano is the guy to talk to on this subject. He's done a LOT of data recovery of old diskettes, and as you've found out, some of these old diskettes can only be read once before the media starts to flake off, scratching the heck out of the disk, totally ruining it. It's a MUST to clean the heads after EVERY reading. It may be a pain in the backside, but if you want to get anything off the next disk, it's a precaution you have to take.

 

Good Luck! I hope you find something rare and valuable, or something that has been lost to the community for decades.