Floppy Disk Drive - Storage

Retro-mania

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Hello there


When storing a machine for long periods of time (in its box) should the floppy drive be left empty or is it a better idea to leave a disk inserted?


To be specific, I'm referring to an A1000 if that helps. I dont have the cardboard insert that would have originally been in the drive.


So what is the best approach? Leave a disk in, or leave the drive empty?


Thanks
Retro-mania
 
Leave it empty. Aging disks tend to start loosing their magnetic surface and would deposit this crap on the heads. When no disk is in the drive the heads are floating mid-air.

Bryce.
 
Hello there
When storing a machine for long periods of time (in its box) should the floppy drive be left empty or is it a better idea to leave a disk inserted?

Leave it empty. The way it came from the factory. The cardboard that was typical for 5.25" drives (luckily) didn't make it to 3.5" drives. Moreover, you don't want a diskette, which is not rotating for a long period of time to "stick" its surface to the magnetic head(s) of the drive. The only reasonable alternative to leaving it empty would be if you had a so-called cleaning diskette, made of non-magnetic fiber. But even then I wouldn't bother.

Hello there
To be specific, I'm referring to an A1000 if that helps. I dont have the cardboard insert that would have originally been in the drive.

Was it there? Did you see it being there? Admittedly I never had a brand new A1000 but none of the later models had anything in their drives when shipped from the factories.

Hello there
So what is the best approach? Leave a disk in, or leave the drive empty?

Leave it empty. You don't risk damaging, magnetising, staining, whatever of your magnetic heads.
 
Ok thanks for the replies and advice!

The chap I bought the system from placed a didk in the drive on Saturday for transportation and I took it out today. Will my drive head be ok? I cant set it all up to test just yet, hence my question.

Thanks again
 
The chap I bought the system from placed a didk in the drive on Saturday for transportation and I took it out today. Will my drive head be ok?

If the diskette looks good (clean) inside - it shouldn't do anything bad to the drive during such relatively short period.
 
Been there and had it! I once snagged an amiga 600 with a disk still in the drive! the seller stated it was as is, as found and nothing was done or tested.

So when it arrived I instantly went to eject the disk carefully, would not budge! In the end I pulled the top cover and keyboard out, lifted the cover on the floppy drive and discovered the heads were stuck to the disk. managed to unstick without messing things up but it was a bit touch and go lol. Could have easily torn the heads out on that :(
 
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Those heads are actually much robuster than you think. Chemicals are bad news, but physically they are difficult to damage.

Bryce.

Gesendet von meinem Motorola DynaTAC 8000x mit Tapatalk
 
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