Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!bionet!agate!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!marlin!jbjones
From: jbjones@marlin.NOSC.MIL (John B. Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: 3.5" Disk "Notcher" wanted
Summary: The drilling business might have drawbacks...
Message-ID: <1200@marlin.NOSC.MIL>
Date: 21 Aug 89 15:33:03 GMT
References: <111700136@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> <NELSON.89Aug18215305@sun.clarkson.edu> <1810@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: jbjones@marlin.nosc.mil.UUCP (John B. Jones)
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego
Lines: 20

In article <1810@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu> kubla@uiuc.edu (Kubla Khan) writes:
>You're the second person who's mentiond the solderng iron technique; evidently
>it's quite popular (you guys must love the smell of burning plastic :-)
>
>Here's one I haven't seen mentioned (but I'm sure someone else has thought of
>already): Take your handy Craftsman variable-speed reversible power drill,
>stick an 11/64" bit into the chuck, mark the correct spot using a hammer and

There have been some horror stories over this 3.5" slot punching
business, with the doomsayers moaning that the data goes bad after not
very long.  So far I've had no problems;  I DO think the drilling gambit
could cause problems however.  Drilling the hole produces a ton of
plastic chips and particles, and an open crack leading to the disk
itself for them to work their way into; if *one* of these particles gets 
past the felt protection pads of the disk and onto the data surface, you
are hosed.  It would be the eqivalent of Mt Rushmore bouncing accross
your neighborhood :-).  This may well be the reason for problems some
have had.

jbjones@marlin.nosc.mil              ...speaking for myself alone