Small black material-like pad came out of the 400k drive

#1 Wed, 14 Oct 2015 - 05:54 Small black material-like pad came out of the 400k drive — #1

Tonight I was enjoying some Wizard's Fire (and of course, the built-in Brickout game for when you want to take a break from your game to play a game), and when finished, the floppy drive had a little bit of a problem ejecting the diskette. I had previously cleaned and re-lubed the drive, and it has worked flawlessly. When I got the diskette out, there was a small material-like and very thin pad with a hole in the center that came out of the drive with the diskette. It was all crinkled up (the material pad was, not the diskette). I'm pretty sure it wasn't part of the diskette. I wonder if it was part of the drive, maybe to supply friction when spinning the diskette. It still seems to still work fine without it. I would include a picture, but I have somehow misplaced the item. I intend to forget about the incident unless some errors manifest with future use. I wonder what a good replacement solution would be?

#2 Wed, 14 Oct 2015 - 05:55 Small black material-like pad came out of the 400k drive — #2

Possibly a thin closed cell foam, or the non hook side of a velcro patch from a craft store.

#3 Wed, 14 Oct 2015 - 06:03 Small black material-like pad came out of the 400k drive — #3

Its the platter pad. It reduces noise upon disk insertion. They often fall off.

#4 Wed, 14 Oct 2015 - 06:15 Small black material-like pad came out of the 400k drive — #4

Oh great... now I have a loud smacking drive on insertion. Grrr.

#5 Wed, 14 Oct 2015 - 18:24 Small black material-like pad came out of the 400k drive — #5

I've encountered the same issue with some of my 400k drives. I'd recommend not running any more disks through until you have a fix, as the plastic head sometimes can scratch the media surface of the floppies. I've had some luck in the past taking a felt pad (like you'd put on the bottom of chair legs to keep them from scratching the floor), thinning it down and cutting it down to size, and glueing it on. It may not be very permanent, but it's the best fix I've been able to conjure up so far.

#6 Wed, 14 Oct 2015 - 19:46 Small black material-like pad came out of the 400k drive — #6

^ wrong pad, you are talking of the head pad. This is the platter pad.

#7 Thu, 15 Oct 2015 - 14:58 Small black material-like pad came out of the 400k drive — #7

Oops, you're right! Sorry for the confusion.

#8 Thu, 15 Oct 2015 - 15:36 Small black material-like pad came out of the 400k drive — #8

Aside from being a bit noisy, I doubt much harm would come from a missing platter pad.

#9 Sun, 18 Oct 2015 - 16:25 Small black material-like pad came out of the 400k drive — #9

Thanks for the info, and fri, it's good to know about the other pad, too, so thanks for that. For now I'll just accept the fact that she has the clap, and keep her diskettes out of the slots of my other macs.