2 Nov
2010
2 Nov
'10
1:57 p.m.
Most disk drive service manauls specifically warn
against cleaning the
heads with a cotton bud or foam swap soaked in propan-2-ol and insist you
use the cleaning disk. I am not sure why. I've never damaged or
misaligned a head by clenaing it by hand.
Funny history:
I was 13, 14 year old. I don't remember well. I'm getting old. A friend
of mine was directing me in the field of computer repair. I had just bought
my first apple II clone (An Exato Pro II from CCE) with a controller board
and a full height 5 1/4 floppy. Mine had a problem in the CA3361 (if I'm not
mistaken, we are talking 22 years ago) transistor array, so it could read
disks, but not write. Marcelo (my friend) was showing me how to align the
drive using locksmith 6.0, reading a disk and finding the middle point in
the rotacional position of the step motor. Ok, I aligned the drive, but it
shown some read errors. The head was dirty.
So, he wetted his finger on the mouth, rubbed the wet finger in the
drive head, cleaned with his shirt..."Presto, it works!" he said. And
unbelieveably, it was clean and working as it should always had.
I shouted loud...For me, he had finished my drive. But I learned that
things in the floppie world wasn't so fragile as I have learned before. And
i cleaned my drives many times using this method, when there wasn't alchool
around.
I should write a book ;o)