Servicing Personal Computers, 3rd Edition

Tape and disk drives 179

As with cassette drives, the read/write heads of disk units require regular cleaning to ensure

trouble-free operation. In use, the disk surface is prone to environmental contaminants such as

smoke, airborne dust, oils and fingerprints, and these can be transferred to the read/write

heads along with oxide particles from the coating of the disk itself. Periodic cleaning is thus

essential and, although this can easily be carried out by untrained personnel using one of

several excellent head cleaning kits currently available, head cleaning is rarely given the

priority it deserves. Thus, whenever a disk-based system is bein ...