Re: Any way to salvage disks that can't write?

[Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com>]

BLuRry <brendan.robert@gmail.com> wrote:
> I carefully removed the magnetic media from the casing and cleaned it
> with a glass of water that had two drops of soap in it using a Q-Tip. 
> Same disk that would not record now has Archon II on it and booted like a
> champ.  No write errors.  No read errors.  I guess it was a thin layer of
> oxidation and/or dust to blame.  I'll have to find a way of doing this
> without slicing open disks but so far so good!  Your mileage may and most likely will vary.
> 
> -B
> 
> On Tuesday, March 12, 2013 9:32:45 AM UTC-5, BLuRry wrote:
>> This is a silly question I never would have asked ten years ago, but now
>> that supply is limited I wonder is there a way to salvage disks (not
>> their data per se) that are unable to write successfully?  I still have
>> quite a few disks with no defects so I'm not necessarily stuck on this. 
>> But I am curious just for posterity's sake if anyone has ever made
>> unusable disks usable again (even for just temporary purposes)
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -B

More likely it had several small particles of debris adhering to the
surface that, collectively, interfered with correct formatting. Your
washing removed enough of them that formatting could succeed. 

I've found that most such particles can be seen in good lighting through
the head access slot as the media is slowly rotated inside the sleeve. 

Try looking closely at one of your "unformattable" disks. 

-michael - NadaNet 3.1 and AppleCrate II: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon