are floppy drives starting to be phased out?

[Neurofreeze]

Originally posted by: Cabana
You can't install 2k or XP on to a RAID or SCSI device without a floppy.

Yes, you can. WinXP and Win2k have drivers for many popular SCSI cards, like Adaptec or pretty much anything with an LSI chip on it. On my most recent machine, I installed WinXP with the dual channel LSI u160 card without a floppy drive. It's still an area that's greatly lacking though (I'm very surprised that Microsoft doesn't have better support for non-floppy devices for 3rd party drivers).

I personally prefer flash drives for transporting small files. They're reliable and big enough that you'll only need one ever, and they're much faster.

 

[RanDum72]

I t depends on how new the controller is. WinXP doesn't even have drivers for the newer Promise Ultra133 IDE cards and Highpoint 372A RAID controllers. Although it says it has drivers for the Highpoint 370A, using it will crash the installation without using the latest drivers on floppy. If you have the newest Ultra320 SCSI controllers, you would definitely need drivers on floppy.

 

[metalmania]

Originally posted by: dszd0g
Not everyone has CD burners, so I don't see them going away soon.

Until one can do BIOS updates from a burned CD (Both IDE and SCSI) I won't be getting rid of my floppy drive.

Why not from a burned CD? I flashed my Abit SE6 mobo using a CDRW disc, I don't know why I need a floppy to do that.

 

[Geotpf]

When I put together my new system, I ordered a floppy drive, but either it is defective or I installed it incorrectly somehow, because neither BIOS nor Windows sees it. This was in July or so, and I still haven't bothered to figure out what is wrong with it. This is more laziness on my part than anything, but it shows that I haven't really needed a floppy in three or four months.

 

[Jeff7]

I wouldn't think it to be tough to find them anymore; I see brand new drives at computer shows for $8 each.
Bestbyte has floppy drives for $9-10 each plus ~$4 shipping.

I don't see the floppy being phased out for awhile yet. It still can't be beat for transferring a few Word documents to another PC, especially an older one. In my experience, packet writing software for CD-RW drives has a few problems - when the file is dragged to the CD-drive for copying, there's a delay before the drive realizes that it's supposed to do anything, then it has to seek, find a spot, then actually write the file. And too often, when I put the CD into another computer (which first needs drivers installed so that it can recognize the file format) often sees a blank CD - I need to reboot the system so that it can see the files. Those're just my own experiences with it though.

 

[blade2]

im sure there was a big conundrum when Zip came out that floppies would be extinct and lo and behold, which is really alive in kickin? floppies are gonna be around for a long time till CDRW's and even DVD-R components/consumables are dirt cheap as floppies are still great for transferring Word documents when emailin is deemed unsuitable.

 

[Cabana]

Originally posted by: Neurofreeze

Originally posted by: Cabana
You can't install 2k or XP on to a RAID or SCSI device without a floppy.

Yes, you can. WinXP and Win2k have drivers for many popular SCSI cards, like Adaptec or pretty much anything with an LSI chip on it. On my most recent machine, I installed WinXP with the dual channel LSI u160 card without a floppy drive. It's still an area that's greatly lacking though (I'm very surprised that Microsoft doesn't have better support for non-floppy devices for 3rd party drivers)..

OK let me rephrase then. I cannot install WinXP or Win2k without a floppy. I have a Highpoint RAID controller on an ABIT motherboard and without the drivers, neither will install.

 

[nortexoid]

i dumped my floppy over a year ago...as soon as i picked upa CD-RW....and then USB thumb drives started becoming semi-popular too...

now i have to use one again sicne my school in taiwan doesn't have CDRWs...

 

[majewski9]

Yeah floppies are nearing their death. I hate having to use them at school since most of their comps dont have burners.

 

[Tab]

Heh, the new floppy will be USB Micro-Drives. Think about it, the size of a small key, up to 1GB of space. (Assuming you get a $500 model 😛) You stick it your USB Port, restart the computer. It has the driver's on it. Fully static proof, and handy. Alot of hard-ware, stores dont like them. You can boot off them, from there you could get passed some utility the blocks the user from screwing around. I once did this, the screensaver is password procted and say 'Best Buy Sucks, goto www.newegg.com'. Hehehe. 😛