Magnetic disk drive unit with flexible skirt

Claim 1

In a disk drive machine for operating on a disk-jacket assembly in which the jacket encloses the disk and is made of a material with high electrical resistivity so that the jacket may accumulate a high electrostatic charge on it, said jacket having a central opening through it and having an elongate slot in one of its thicknesses, said disk drive machine comprising: a frame having a vertical recess in it into which the disk-jacket assembly may be dropped, a rotatable hub carried by said frame and adapted to have an engagement with the disk of said disk-jacket assembly through the central opening of the jacket for driving the disk, a transducer of substantially electrically insulating material adapted to extend through the elongate slot of said disk-jacket assembly so as to have a data transferring relationship with respect to the disk, and a skirt fixed at the upper end of said recess and depending downwardly into said recess and being of such flexible, flimsy thin sheet material so that the skirt is attracted to and thus moves into contact with an adjacent outer surface of the disk-jacket assembly positioned in said recess due to the electrostatic charge on the jacket, said skirt being made at least partially of electrically conducting material so that the electrostatic charge on the jacket may flow through the electrically conducting material of the skirt to said frame for dissipating the electrostatic charge on the jacket to the frame.