Cleaning disk packs (was: RK05 images)

[Tony Duell]

> 
> > Just out of curiosity, what's your procedure for cleaning them?
> 
> The proper procedure is to pay $50 for one of the legacy disk vendors
> to clean them correctly.

In my case that would mean finding several thousand dollars, money which 
I quite simply don't have (not 'don't have spare', just 'don't hace').

More seriously, the RK05 maintenance manual gives a procedure for 
cleaning the packs. It is clear that they were sonsidered cleanable by 
field servoids, and I am darn sure if they can do it then so can I. In 
fact many of us here do things that were not considered to be perfomrable 
in the field, and have no problems.

Now, the manuals for the RLs and RK06/07 specificially warn against 
cleaning the packs by hand. I would guess  the higher bit density of 
those drives implies a lower flying height of the heads, and thus more 
likelyhood of a headcrash if you damaga the platter surface in cleaning. 
However, I do wonder if it is possivle to do it youself, and if so, what 
to do. Remmeber many of us have facilities, tools and equipment that 
would not have been avaialbe to the average customer or even field service,

And of course relying on some other company to keep a classic computer 
running is fine until said company goes out of business because we're the 
only people still needing it (let's be realisitic here, there are not 
enough of us to keep a compnay in business providing a service to us 
alone). At that point you hae to do it yourself.

-tony