2
Tried to clean a floppy drive head with a cotton swab and made it worse
I was working on a 1990s Compaq laptop that wouldn't read disks. I mean, I figured the read head was just dirty, right? So I opened it up and gently wiped the metal head with a dry cotton swab. The drive stopped working completely. Turns out, I left tiny fibers from the swab all over the head. I had to use a proper foam swab and isopropyl alcohol to fix my own mess. Has anyone found a better way to clean these without making a new problem?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
angela8991mo ago
Oh man, you basically gave the drive head a fuzzy sweater. Classic move. It's like the one time you try to fix something gently, you end up leaving a whole mess behind. Why is it that cotton swabs seem to shed more than a cat in summer? At least you figured out the real fix, even if it was cleaning up your own cleanup job.
2
craig.reese1mo ago
Heard some techs say microfiber cloths work better for that exact reason. Ever try those instead?
3
schmidt.grant17d ago
Microfiber is the only thing I trust now.
-1