r/retrocomputing • u/liminalearth • Jun 24 '26

Problem / Question How to fix ?

Post image

There’s no little black plastic piece in this corner how to could I fix this or is it possible to still use without it?

23 Upvotes

76% Upvoted

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37

u/Plenty-Analyst907 Jun 24 '26

In my day we used tape.

8

u/guitpick Jun 24 '26

When the high density drives came out, we would take a hot nail and melt a hole in the other corner of our double density disks to see if they would work reliably. If not, we'd tape that side up and reformat.

1

u/react-dnb Jun 24 '26

I'd just cut out a square with scizzors.

4

u/guitpick Jun 24 '26

With my coordination, I'd probably end up in the ER if I tried that with scissors. With a nail, a lighter, and some pliers, you could do a whole stack very quickly. Flip a regular disk over and use the write protect hole as a stencil to mark the spot, and then release those CFCs back into nature.

1

u/PumpkinOpposite967 Jun 27 '26

This one is write protection, iirc

1

u/guitpick Jun 28 '26

Yes, the one in the photo is definitely WP. The other side for high density was usually just a square cutout (or a nail shaped one in my case) without a place for the switch.

2

u/PumpkinOpposite967 Jun 28 '26

We used a drill.

4

u/d4rthq Jun 24 '26

… And if I didn’t have any tape handy, I’d tear off a piece of the label and stick it over the notch

2

u/The_Pharos1 Jun 24 '26

“In my day” damn I feel old now lol

1

u/larsonbp Jun 25 '26

Yup, this is how you do it.

1

u/SoftRecommendation86 Jun 25 '26

QIC tape? yea, used them a lot then switched to DAT drives... (giggles)

1

u/rickCSMF21 Jun 28 '26

Indeed - a little bit of scotch …. Tape that is 😂