It was possible to do this. Univac metal tape reels actually had a spool of mylar tape to isolate the metal tape from the heads, for example. There would be a lot of loss in the transducer, though, which you may be able to compensate for by using a magnetorestrictive instead of inductive head. I haven't pulled apart an Iomega bernolli drive to see if you could fly a 5" floppy over the plate and use the head in it for recovery.