< No, no one with a grasp of how the technology works has ever claimed tha < little dust or smoke will damage a floppy disk or drive. Floppy disks u < much different head/media interface than winchester rigid-media drives. < or smoke particles can and will cause head crashes on winchester drives Floppies with added dust will destroy the media and I've seen a few heads that were unserviceable. It's not healthy for the positioner either. The media does not tolerate dust. < of the drives in product literature, and it is also consistent with the < high failure rate I've observed (approaching 100% after four weeks on th < Syquest drives). Winchester drive technology was developed for permanen < sealed HDAs, not cartridge drives. And even the sealed drives were desi < with air filtration. The 270mb Syquest I have is used, the media is used and the current platter has been in the drive for a month without accumulating bad blocks. It former owner used it in a firld construction site to log sample data. It does have a recirculation filter and the spin up suggests that the heads are not loaded until the airflow (and platter speed) is established. There is not majik, spin a platter at 3600rpm and dust can be counted on to migrate to the walls. The cart has ribs to direct the airflow. Just because it has a shutter I don't use that an excuse to subject it to dust and other risks. Allison