This is an email from Larry Kraemer during Sept 2010, about use of the Catweasel floppy
controller. See the Web page below for more info about that controller. - Herb Johnson

http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/s_drives.html#catweasel

This note updated Mar 17 2014 thanks to discussion with David Sutherland. - Herb

From Larry Kraemer during Sept 2010:
------------------------------------

My TRS-80 Model III & IV posting is on the Ubuntu Forum (Linux) at:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9814956#post9814956

Here is the last portion:
HOW TO COPY THOSE OLD 5.25" FLOPPY'S USING THE CATWEASEL PCI CARD:
The Catweasel MK4 PLUS is a multi-format floppy disk controller PCI Card that can
be plugged into a spare PCI slot, and used from a Terminal Window in Ubuntu.
I plugged mine in my Desktop running 8.04.4 LTS.

CATWEASEL FEATURES:
Read/write real Amiga floppy disk's on a Windows PC
Use a real Amiga keyboard on a PC
Use a real Amiga mouse/joystick on PC
Ideal for WinUAE and Amiga Forever - transfer all your Amiga floppies over to the PC
Empty SID chip socket for realistic C64 sound emulation

Third Party Support
Catweasel MK4 drivers for classic Amiga available:
Multidisk V3.65 uses OpenPCI to access the controller through the Prometheus PCI Busboard.
Third party driver support for Linux 2.6 also available
Third party driver support for AmigaOS 4.1 now also available (limited)
Third party driver support for AROS now also available

I purchased my Catweasel from:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=842

Tim Mann has a nice website with support for the CP/M and TRS-80 Floppy Disks at:
http://www.tim-mann.org/trs80.html
http://www.tim-mann.org/catweasel.html

>From Tim's website you can download his Catweasel Floppy Read/Write Tools, version 4.4
cw2dmk-4.4.zip or cw2dmk-4.4.tar.gz and extract the folder containing his files for
version 4.4.

LINUX:
>From within my Desktop running Ubuntu 8.04, I just opened a Terminal Window, and used the following commands:

[code]
cd ~
cd cw2dmk-4.4
sudo ./cw2dmk -v1 trstst01.dmk
sudo ./cw2dmk -v1 trstst02.dmk
sudo ./cw2dmk -v1 trststxx.dmk
[/code]
to copy the TRS-80 floppy disks to the DMK image format that is used by most Emulators.

WINDOWS:
There are Windows Drivers on the Catweasel CDR along with other Software, but I haven't
looked into that so far.

WARNING - UNAPPROVED METHOD:
One CAUTION here is that if your Floppy Disk's are 25+ years old as mine were, the
Oxide coating on most of the floppy's are ready to fail, and you may ruin them by trying
to read them. (You may find that a tiny bit of Alcohol placed on a cotton swab will
totally remove all the Oxide coating from the platter making then unreadable, so DON'T
try Alcohol as a cleaner or lubricant.) Also, the inner lining of the old Floppy's have
lost their lubricating ability by become dry over the years, and this causes DRAG on the
heads as the platter tries to spin so the read heads can recover the data. 

I chose use [of] a lubricant from KANO LABS in Nashville, TN called Aerosol "SiliKroil" to lubricate my floppy's. I was able to recover about 65% of the disks using this TOTALLY UNAPPROAVED method. I ruined the first 4-5 disks by trying to read them dry. Costly ERROR!
http://www.kanolabs.com
SiliKroil is an Industrial Penetrating Lubricant that works wonders, and doesn't remove
the Oxide coating as Alcohol and Silicone does.

Larry Kraemer

------------------------------

Note from Herb Johnson, March 2014:

Information about the SiliKroil product:

http://www.kanolabs.com/penLub.html#anchor174712
http://www.kanolabs.com/MSDS2013/SILIKROILaerosol2013.pdf

The text above, is a quote from Larry Kraemer in 2010 and is not information directly from me. I looked at the SiliKroil product's data sheet and the manufacturer's representations of the product. It's essentially a mix of lubricating oils plus some silicone (which is a well-known lubricant), mixed in a CO2 propellant.

I would not recommend putting oils on a diskette media surface. This product is advertized for use to remove rusty bolts. The magnetic media on diskettes is *iron oxide - RUST*. I therefore do NOT recommend this product. 

Larry's experiences with "dry" diskettes are certainly relevant. There are a number of apparent
causes of media failure during read. One is lubrication failure. Another is failed adhesion of 
the media coating to the diskette (Mylar). There are other causes. One of my Web pages on this
subject is:

http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/clean_disks.html 

Herb JOhnson