10 May
2010
10 May
'10
4:37 p.m.
On Mon, 10 May 2010, Mr Ian Primus wrote:
When floppy drives were new, they usually came with
that cardboard piece
inserted, and with the drive door closed. When shipping a floppy drive,
is it really best to have something closed in the drive?
WHY do you suppose the manufacturer did?
I'm talking
about single head 5 1/4" drives here. I've seen several methods:
Nothing inserted, drive open
nothing inserted, drive closed
Disk inserted, drive closed
cardboard protector, drive closed
disk, in sleeve, inserted *sideways*, drive open (can't close it like that)
You can close the door on a Tandon TM100 with the disk in any of the EIGHT
possible positions.
disk inserted backwards, drive closed.
a reasonable choice if you don't have the cardboard
Now, on a single head full height drive, there really
isn't a whole lot
to damage. The sping on the lever mechanism is pretty strong, so it's
unlikely that it'll slam down and hit the head unless it's really
dropped hard. And, if it does, it's just got a fuzzy pressure pad there
- not another head. Also, with something as thin as a disk inserted,
does it really protect anything? I suppose that the closed position is
more stable, since then the mechanism would be fairly solid, and you'd
have less chance of damaging the drive door, but would that mean any
shock would press on the head?
A similar question would probably be - when single head full height
drives were new, did they ship with a cardboard protector?
Yes.