Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!elroy!peregrine!zardoz!hodge!pnet06!thecloud From: thecloud@pnet06.cts.com (Ken Mcleod) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: 3.5" Disk Drive Problems Message-ID: <1689@hodge.UUCP> Date: 9 Aug 88 11:30:24 GMT Sender: rusty@hodge.UUCP Organization: People-Net [pnet06], Orange, CA Lines: 28 jweeks@umnd-cs-luke.d.umn.edu (John A. Weeks III) writes: >All three of these (800K floppy) drives have experienced the same mechanical >failure: the upper read/write head mounting bracket (piece of >copper foil) has broken. This results in the upper head coming >loose and an error message... I'm sitting here with a piece of tape over the slot in my Mac, with the exact same problem! The upper head is dangling at a zany angle from a broken piece of copper foil. Fortunately, I have an external floppy as well as a hard drive to get me through. Unfortunately, I have a new 800K floppy on order from Apple (3+ weeks and counting... glad it wasn't something *really* in short supply!). There was no warning when the drive failed; in fact, I was in the middle of a backup session, and the unlucky disk in the drive at the time got eaten (grind, grind...). The life expectancy of an 800K floppy drive, in regular use 8 hours a day, appears to be 9-12 months... based on my experience, John's, and several other people I know personally. This would seem to be the one Mac component that takes the most punishment, from a mechanical point of view, so I don't know what a "reasonable" lifespan should be. However, the fact that in all cases the upper head bracket failed seems to indicate a design flaw. Is this a "known problem," perhaps? ========== ==================================== ....... =========== Ken McLeod UUCP: {crash uunet}!pnet06!thecloud :. .: "Kenneth, ---------- ARPA: crash!pnet06!thecloud@nosc.mil :::.. ..::: what is the thecloud@pnet06.cts.com | thecloud@dhw68k.cts.com //// frequency?"