Floppy Drives - Causes of drive errors, drive failures, and performance problems

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Document ID: SSCT-3JLJEH

Floppy Drives - Causes of drive errors, drive failures, and performance problems

Applicable to: World-Wide

Symptom:
Personal Computer users may experience diskette drive errors, damaged diskettes, and interchangeability problems due to contamination and environmental conditions.

Problem Isolation:
Analysis of used diskette drives and diskettes have revealed that the following items are the primary causes of diskette drive problems:
1. Head contamination due to "burnished-on oxide".
2. Head contamination due to dust and/or particulate matter.
3. Poor quality media, with poor oxide bonding.
4. Poor quality media, with imbedded particulate contaminants.

Note: Burnished-on oxide is the oxide and binder residue which has migrated from the diskette media and firmly bonded to the read/heads.

Interchangeability Problems:
Contamination which interferes with normal head - media contact, may cause interchangeability problems (diskette may read on one drive, but not on another). This can cause lower than normal amplitude signals and resulting read errors. Poor quality media may be the contributing factor to this situation.

Dusty Environments and Infrequent Usage:
Many failures are caused by dust and fiber particles which pick up a minute electrical (static) charge and attach to the recording head surfaces. This is particularly true if there is no diskette drive usage for long periods of time. Then, when a diskette is inserted, the heads above and below the diskette come together and trap the contamination between the diskette and the heads. Damage results from one of the following:

-

Tiny circular damage marks may occur at the head contact point due to contamination particles being compressed into the diskette surface.

-

The contaminant sticks to the head long enough to develop a scratch into the magnetic recording coating.

-

The contaminant may bond (stick) to the media recording surface.

-

A particle may bond to the recording surface of the head and strip the coating from the media, if the coating bonding (adhesion) is weak.

In an area of high dust or particulate contamination and infrequent diskette drive usage (daily or less), such as a banking, store system or some LAN environments, the following recommendations should be very helpful :

Use an expendable diskette and do a directory listing (Example: Type dir a: and hit Enter) prior to inserting a "critical" data diskette. This will wipe the heads and minimize the exposure of contaminants damaging diskettes and causing errors.

Additional Information:
IBM brand media was used in a test field returned diskette drives which has initially failed diagnostic testing. The heads on these drives were contaminated with "Burnished-on" oxide by performing repetitive format routines until all errors were eliminated. These drives were returned to serviceable condition.

The use of "Head Cleaning Kits" on PC diskette drives is not supported. Engineering investigations into "cleaning" of diskette drives have shown no currently available method to be acceptable.

Due to recent environmental issues, FREON based solvents, used in some diskette drive cleaning kits, have been eliminated and replaced with Isopropyl Alcohol. This exposes the user to the following situations:

1.

Freon evaporates faster then Isopropyl Alcohol., therefore, a user can put too much fluid on the cleaning disk which will leave a liquid on the head surface. If a data diskette is then immediately inserted and the heads are loaded, the magnetic recording surface under the head can be dissolved.

2.

Unlike FREON, Isopropyl Alcohol, as it dries, can leave a film on the heads. Any film on the head surface can cause read problems. The use of quality media, such as that supplied by IBM, awareness of the "Dust" factor and the use of expendable diskette" circumvention technique, as described above is the best long term solution to gaining reliability from diskette drives.

Search Keywords

Hint Category

Diagnostics, Error Messages, Performance

Date Created

22-11-91

Last Updated

27-01-99

Revision Date

26-01-2000

Brand

IBM Options

Product Family

Diskette/ZIP Drives

Machine Type

External, Internal

Model

All

TypeModel

Retain Tip (if applicable)

Reverse Doclinks
and Admin Purposes

-	Tiny circular damage marks may occur at the head contact point due to contamination particles being compressed into the diskette surface.
-	The contaminant sticks to the head long enough to develop a scratch into the magnetic recording coating.
-	The contaminant may bond (stick) to the media recording surface.
-	A particle may bond to the recording surface of the head and strip the coating from the media, if the coating bonding (adhesion) is weak.

1.	Freon evaporates faster then Isopropyl Alcohol., therefore, a user can put too much fluid on the cleaning disk which will leave a liquid on the head surface. If a data diskette is then immediately inserted and the heads are loaded, the magnetic recording surface under the head can be dissolved.
2.	Unlike FREON, Isopropyl Alcohol, as it dries, can leave a film on the heads. Any film on the head surface can cause read problems. The use of quality media, such as that supplied by IBM, awareness of the "Dust" factor and the use of expendable diskette" circumvention technique, as described above is the best long term solution to gaining reliability from diskette drives.

	Search Keywords
	Hint Category	Diagnostics, Error Messages, Performance
	Date Created	22-11-91
	Last Updated	27-01-99
	Revision Date	26-01-2000
	Brand	IBM Options
	Product Family	Diskette/ZIP Drives
	Machine Type	External, Internal
	Model	All
	TypeModel
	Retain Tip (if applicable)
	Reverse Doclinks and Admin Purposes