It’s been a long time since 5.25-inch floppy drives were mainstream. But a lot of them can still work today with a little bit of cleaning and lubrication. Here’s a quick guide to 5.25 floppy drive maintenance.
Cleaning the heads, then cleaning and lubricating the rails is usually all it takes to get a 5.25-inch drive working well. Using the right cleaner and lubricating sparingly is the key to doing more good than harm.

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.










