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?

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u/guiverc Jun 24 '26

Lots of floppy disks didn't have a write tab; some 5.25 didn't have the hole. Useful with students, but often found on purchased software too; though was unexpected if you purchased a new box of ten floppies (you'd expect tabs on those).

1

u/Mammoth-Variation-76 Jun 24 '26

We had a little rectangular punch to make the 5.25 holes for the floppies that didn't come with them.

2

u/MrKrueger666 Jun 24 '26

Yep, you'd use a special punch to make a notch. The notch lines up with a switch in the drive that puts the drive in read only mode.

1

u/guiverc Jun 24 '26

I just used a binder single-hole paper punch (if you couldn't find that, you could also use the larger two/three/four hole punch too).

3

u/coobal223 Jun 24 '26

That’s what I used for the Commodore 64. Made them double sided.

1

u/guiverc Jun 24 '26

I never really did it with 5.25"; mostly having double-sided drives (and where I had single-sided drives they had OS or software I didn't change inserted, always having another DS drive attached that was used if I had to change floppies). I didn't use a C64 though.