The Pros & Cons of a floppy drive

Reefsmoka

Reefsmoka

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Edit: This thread was split from another as it rather veered off the subject of a forum member asking for advice on the purchase of a new PC, so it may appear a little disjointed. We start with christopherpostill pointing out to reefsmoka that he'd omitted a floppy drive in a system he proposed:

christopherpostill said:
You forgot the floppy drive there Reef
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Seriously?!?!

Who uses floppys anymore? I havent put floppy drive on the last 3 computers I built. The computer im on hasnt got a floppy, the computer my friend on which i help build has no floppy, neither does my sisters :/. CD-Rs are so cheap nowadays £18 for 100 ;).
 
Re: Looking for a PC

Always good to have one in there anyways, sods law states that at some point, you will need to use it if you dont have one!
 
Re: Looking for a PC

Reefsmoka said:
Seriously?!?!

Who uses floppys anymore? I havent put floppy drive on the last 3 computers I built. The computer im on hasnt got a floppy, the computer my friend on which i help build has no floppy, neither does my sisters :/. CD-Rs are so cheap nowadays £18 for 100 ;).
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I still use them, I install one of these in all my systems. ;)
 
Re: Looking for a PC

I wanted one of them, but i couldnt afford to put one in at the time, £18.50 inc VAT i think. My budget was stretched to the limit!
 
Re: Looking for a PC

On the subject of floppy drives, I was thinking of taking all mine out, the only things I use them for now is a BIOS flash and booting into a disk management program (Paragon). But I could probably make a bootable CD using this advice: Boot CD

And on two of my machines, both Gigabyte boards, I can update BIOS within Windows.

The oldest board I have is about two years old now, an Asrock board. Would I be able to boot from an external USB floppy drive? If so, I think I'll buy one of those and do away with my internal floppy drives.

Even Acronis True Image offers the option to create a bootable CD to restore an OS.

Opinions? Fresh Thread?

Oh, and that system doesn't include a monitor, mouse, keyboard or loudspeakers ;)
 
Re: Looking for a PC

All i use my floppy drive for is configuring RAID drivers etc etc... its always good to have one in PC.

Im not sure anout flash drives, when in XP setup and you need to look for drivers on a disk, it ALWAYS goes to the A:
 
Re: Looking for a PC

christopherpostill said:
All i use my floppy drive for is configuring RAID drivers etc etc... its always good to have one in PC.

Im not sure about flash drives, when in XP setup and you need to look for drivers on a disk, it ALWAYS goes to the A:
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Good point Chris, I'd forgotten about that. I have 2 RAID 0 systems on the go atm, I don't believe Microsoft's XP will load the RAID drivers from any other medium.

Damn stupid state of affairs :mad:

Anybody know of an alternative?

edit: Actually, I think that link I gave in an earlier post here may solve the problem. Maybe. I'll have to study it a little closer.
 
Re: Looking for a PC

christopherpostill said:
Shirley it can't make Windows Setup look in another place though cannit?
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Not sure. That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Apparently, some boot CD's can fool a system into thinking it's an A drive, but whether it would work on an install, I don't know.

And don't call me Shirley ;)
 
Re: Looking for a PC

hehe :)

I doubt it would because how would you run the program that would fool it in the first place?
 
Re: Looking for a PC

christopherpostill said:
I doubt it would because how would you run the program that would fool it in the first place?
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Aye, I doubt it would work, would it?

I may just try this thing soon though.

Ironic that Microsoft are the only reason that we would have to look to keeping a floppy drive, to install RAID drivers, when they profess to be of this time and looking to the future.

In view of that, it's kinda hypocritical that they should even consider dropping support and updates for Win 98.

Odd state of affairs.

I wonder if I could fly a floppy drive socket to a rear port, and a floppy drive PSU connector, just for the sole purpose of installing RAID drivers during an XP install?

Nope, that's a bit silly, I think.

Ah well - snookered :D
 
Re: Looking for a PC

i have no problems with floppy drives,

what about when you want to send a word document to someone who hasnt got the net? waste of a CD... post em a floppy, eh, flops ;)

i await the day when i see Abit send custom flash drives with their motherboards with drivers on instead of CDs'
 
Re: Looking for a PC

christopherpostill said:
i have no problems with floppy drives,

what about when you want to send a word document to someone who hasnt got the net? waste of a CD... post em a floppy, eh, flops ;)

i await the day when i see Abit send custom flash drives with their motherboards with drivers on instead of CDs'
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Maybe.

It just seems so... archaic.

But still, it seems, there's a need.

Frustrating.

Tell ya what though, the price of a CD is the same, if not less, than a floppy disk. And less liable to corruption. A floppy disk is the computer equivalent to a cassette tape. CD's are more reliable.

The only thing that goes against the grain is that sending a few word documents means something like 650Mb of wasted space. We should get over it, really, cost is the main thing that matters.
 
Re: Looking for a PC

thats what i meant really, all that space. and its not so easy, click and drag, you know.
 
Re: Looking for a PC

muckshifter said:
I still use them, I install one of these in all my systems. ;)
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Ohh... that looks good! Can you buy these in the UK?

I always use a floppy drive in my PCs, but probably only because I am used to it and still do get the occasional disk from someone with documents for university on it. I don't actually have any disks to write to if I needed it though :)

floppybootstomp said:
Not sure. That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Apparently, some boot CD's can fool a system into thinking it's an A drive, but whether it would work on an install, I don't know.
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I've seen this before on some old Windows 98 install CDs for a Sony Laptop - I have no idea how to do it though :o
 
Ohh... that looks good! Can you buy these in the UK?
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Mucks replies sarcastically ...

Yes!



Now for the subtle hint ... “where does mucks buy 99% of his stuff from?”


:D
 
muckshifter said:
Mucks replies sarcastically ...

Yes!



Now for the subtle hint ... “where does mucks buy 99% of his stuff from?”


:D
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Will check CCL now ;)
 
Still put floppy's in all PC's. They are so cheap to buy and just occasionally come in handy. Have a trusty boot disk lying about. They are a tried and tested method so why take them out?
 
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