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From: tmattox@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Timothy I Mattox)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: Hi Density Disks -- high failure rate
Message-ID: <1991Apr3.041443.12295@en.ecn.purdue.edu>
Date: 3 Apr 91 04:14:43 GMT
References: <1991Apr3.003702.14936@hawk.cs.ukans.edu>
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Lines: 26

In article <1991Apr3.003702.14936@hawk.cs.ukans.edu> chai@hawk.cs.ukans.edu (Ian Chai) writes:
>Has anyone else had problems with a high failure rate with the
>1.44 meg disks?
Yes.

DUST DUST DUST!!!!!!!
Here at Purdue, we have several Mac labs, with 20-30 Macs each.
They are left on most of the day for 5 to 7 days a week.
For the Mac IIcx's they act like vacuum cleaners, with the floppy drive
being the largest opening on the case directly in-line with the fan.
I generally have to try two different machines to get one with a working drive.

It seems as if the 1.44 Meg disks are much more sensitive to dusty drives.

My question is this:
Why did Apple not test these machines in a high dust environment?
Or, if they did test them, why did they not include something like a spring
loaded door in the front of the drive to keep the dust out?
Hey, the actual floppy disk has one, so why not the drive?

It is almost pointless to have the shutters on the disks, when the drives they
are used in have an ACTIVE mechanism to collect dust (the machine's fan).

--
Live long and prosper.     - Tim Mattox - (email: tmattox@ecn.purdue.edu)
		                         (talk: tmattox@en.ecn.purdue.edu)