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Addressing a floppy disk drive which scratches disks

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First post, by mrgreen

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Hello,
I have a 3,5 inch floppy disk drive that scratches floppies when it reads (may be also writes) them.
I tried inserting a floppy and turning on write protection and it doesn't seem to have broken the floppy.
But this defect does not happen in all cases: sometimes it does not scratch the surface. Floppies I put in this drive are working well (before).
What have I to check? How can I fix it?
Regards,
M.

My first PC had Windows 98 os.

Reply 1 of 3, by paradigital

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If the disks are getting scratched in circles then it's pretty likely that the heads are dirty.

Disassemble the drive and gently clean the heads would be the best course of action, followed closely by one of those head cleaning floppies doused in a cleaning solution (or isopropyl alcohol).

Reply 2 of 3, by maxtherabbit

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Floppy drives only have one set of heads, and they are in contact with the disk surface anytime the disk is inserted and latched. So nothing to do with write protect or what operation you're performing on the computer is relevant

Reply 3 of 3, by nfraser01

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paradigital wrote on 2023-09-18, 11:32:

If the disks are getting scratched in circles then it's pretty likely that the heads are dirty.

Disassemble the drive and gently clean the heads would be the best course of action, followed closely by one of those head cleaning floppies doused in a cleaning solution (or isopropyl alcohol).

+1 for this

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