A while back, I picked up a broken XF551 drive for a good price on eBay, thinking it would be a simple matter of reflowing the SIO jack solder joints to get it working. I finally got around to cracking it open today and the repair was even easier than I expected!
There's a small metal shield that sits on top of the upper head (in the attached picture, it's the U-shaped piece sitting to the right of the head) and is held in place by three little bits of double-sided tape. The tape had deteriorated and crumbled onto the heads. I carefully cleaned the heads and removed all the remaining tape and adhesive - a little rubbing alcohol, a Q-tip and some compressed air, and I now have a functioning XF551!
My question is, is this piece important enough to go through the trouble of reattaching somehow, or can I leave it out? An EMI shield of some kind?
