kalucki@charm.UUCP (John Kalucki) (09/14/85)
>I couldn't believe it, so I just opened up one of my drives. Sure enough, >the little plastic arm is part of the entire black case (front) of the >drive. It works by having the arm attached by plastic so thin there as to be >flexible (this is the part I'm sure that broke). The arm then touches the >actual write-protect switch. This same thing happened to a friend on mine, and I can see how it could happen to any Apple that is used by a large number of "uncaring" users. The way that these little black swiches are torn out suggests abuse by users. It may not be the case every time, but... Anyway, it seems that these switches get torn out when someone yanks a disk out of the drive quickly. They write-protect notch gets caught (the poor thing can't "get out of the way" fast enough) and breaks the switch. It seems logical that it would get caught more often on home-made w-p-notches, because they are usually more ragged than the normal ones. Also, sticking *too* many of those write-protect stickers on the disk, making the disk too big to fit in the drive, also causes these switches to become caught on that gooey stuff left over from the n-th replacement of such stickers. If I ever had to run a lab with many Apples used by many students, some less considerate that others, I would stress the *careful* removal of disks, and the inspection of the notch area before inserting the disk. I have had my Apple a good five or so years, and have never had any troubles. -John Kalucki @ Physics Research @ Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ ...!ihnp4!charm!kalucki ^^^ | Its really Berkeley Hts., NJ, but me? Complain? Never!