Why? Dirty read/write heads on the floppy drive can cause errors during the reading and/or writing process.

Procedures: The floppy drive can be cleaned two different ways. The first method of cleaning a floppy drive and our recommended method is to purchase a kit at your local retail store designed to clean the read/write heads on your floppy drive.

The second method of cleaning the floppy drive is only recommended for experienced computer users. Open the floppy drive casing and physically swab the read/write heads with a lint-free foam swap soaked in pure alcohol, free-on, or trichoroethane. When performing these steps be extremely careful when cleaning the heads to ensure that you do not lock them out of alignment causing the floppy drive to not work. To help prevent the heads from becoming out of alignment use a dabbing motion lightly putting the swab on the head and removing it, do not perform a side-to-side motion with the swab.