The social distancing caused by Covid-19 response triggered me to remember I have a C64...
I boxed it all up 30 years ago and it has always been in a closet inside my home. Good news is the c64 and 1581 work, and so do the few 3.5" disks I had for it.
I also have a 1571 and the drive was stored with the cardboard "head vibration protector" in place, but at some point the lever popped right back up so the lever was not down The protector did not pop out though because that automatic "push out" mechanism in the 1571 was never reliable.
Anyway, the 1571 refuses to read most of the 5.25" floppies. I can't even get to the directory listing on most. On some of them, I can get to the directory listing but unable to load any programs. This includes original game and utilties disks as well as my own memorex disks. Not sure if the floppies are dead (magnetic information/properties gone) or if the drive is the culprit. I do have a few blanks which I formatted 30 years ago and the drive seems to be ok reading the directory listing from those most times. I have not yet tried saving something to these blanks and seeing if I can read it back out.
I did pop the top off the drive and cleaned the heads with some alchohol and a q-tip. But it did not make much difference, if any. Any ideas on what to try?