Working on disk drive, first giving it a good cleaning

FIRST STEP, CLEAN OFF THE DISK DRIVE

Although the drive looked really horrible, when I began to clean up sections I discovered that there are three main categories of impairment that cause the drive to look like it does. We have the foam insulation which became a black powder, there is some kind of oily film which is in turn holding dirt on the parts, and some parts have rusted. 

So far, the parts that have rusted are mostly secondary structures, such as poles to hold a cover on top of the drive, thus rust has no impact on their functioning. The one exception I can see is the main plate that turns the disk platter inside a cartridge has noticeable rust on its surface. Loose rust poses a huge risk for head crashes, thus I will need to convert and seal the rust on this particular part to make things safe. 

I have wiped away the power and the oily dirt from part of the drive already and was pleased to see how nicely it cleans up. The only visible degradation will be the rusty parts and I can deal with them. 

Result of just a little cleaning

I checked key parts such as the disk arm mechanism and found they had no lasting corrosion after I cleaned off the surface contaminants. In the picture above, you can see the rusty parts - a vertical pole, the spring holder to its left and the rotor that spins the disk platter.