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What you need

This teardown is not a repair guide. To repair your Floppy Disk, use our service manual.

  1. Floppy Disk Teardown, Floppy Disk Teardown: step 1, image 1 of 2 Floppy Disk Teardown, Floppy Disk Teardown: step 1, image 2 of 2
    • The floppy disk has gone the way of the dinosaur.

    • Except for Google's lovable jumping dinosaur.

    • These disks might hold one or two photos at best; they probably won't hold much more though at only 2MB.

    • It's worth noting that today's photos taken can be upwards of 10MB on their own!

    • We liked skimmilk05's teardown so much (and his amazing attempt at his own teardown graphic) we supplied one of our own for this truly unique community contributed teardown. - iFixit Staff <3

  2. Floppy Disk Teardown, Removing the Cover: step 2, image 1 of 2 Floppy Disk Teardown, Removing the Cover: step 2, image 2 of 2
    Tool used on this step:
    Jimmy
    $7.95
    Buy
    • Thin metal pieces are good places to start.

    • This one's so thin that you can bend it with a finger.

    • This one wasn't too hard, but if you're having trouble getting it up, a Jimmy comes in handy.

  3. Floppy Disk Teardown, Removing the Casing: step 3, image 1 of 3 Floppy Disk Teardown, Removing the Casing: step 3, image 2 of 3 Floppy Disk Teardown, Removing the Casing: step 3, image 3 of 3
    • With some careful prying, the entire lid pops right off.

    • You may need a spudger, metal spudger, Jimmy, or a combination of the three to get into the crack where the metal piece once was.

    • There are little pushpins holding the two halves together, but they were pulled apart during disassembly, easy as 1, 2, 3!

    • And we get a glimpse of what's inside! Spoiler alert: not much is there.

  4. Floppy Disk Teardown, The Spring: step 4, image 1 of 1
    • In cracking open the casing, we lost a tiny little spring.

    • Boing.

    • Boing.

    • Playtime's over. Best guess as to what it is? Keeping that metal piece over the tape inside.

  5. Floppy Disk Teardown, The Cleaning Pad: step 5, image 1 of 1
    • On the inside, we see a small pad, probably to clean the turning disk that's inside.

    • This one was pretty nasty. Eww.

    • This pad is glued into the casing with some tough adhesive; the manufacturer really didn't want this pad coming out on its own.

    • Aha!

    • The meat n' bones of the floppy disk, the disk itself!

    • Ever wondered why the floppy disk was called the "floppy" disk, even though it was in that hard plastic case? This is why.

  6. Floppy Disk Teardown, The Disk: step 7, image 1 of 2 Floppy Disk Teardown, The Disk: step 7, image 2 of 2
    • More floppy goodness.

  7. Floppy Disk Teardown, Wrap-up: step 8, image 1 of 1
    • It's a pretty simple device in all. Not much else to say here.

  8. Floppy Disk Teardown, Final Thoughts: step 9, image 1 of 2 Floppy Disk Teardown, Final Thoughts: step 9, image 2 of 2
    • Floppy Disk Repairability Score: 1 out of 10 (10 is the easiest to repair)

    • This antique technology has virtually no replacement parts.

    • Replacement of the tape or cleaning pads are impossible without breaking the case.

    • The cleaning pads are held on with tight adhesive, making replacement difficult.

    • Attempts to use heat to loosen adhesive may result in the case melting.

    • High susceptibility to magnets make this device very sensitive.

Seji the veggie

Member since: 02/09/15

1,986 Reputation

1 Guide authored

10 Comments

Super cool! Haven't seen a floppy disk in forever.

Taylor Whitney - Reply

They are a tad old...haha

Seji the veggie -

This is amazeballs. Solid work!

Kay-Kay Clapp - Reply

"floppy goodness" -- so good

Julia - Reply

Great teardown! :)

Jeff Suovanen - Reply

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