Do i need my external floppy drive on my laptop?

sirpado

Senior member
Jun 27, 2001
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I just got a good deal on a laptop from my friend's dad. It is a ultralight sharp actius, which i like a lot. It also came with an OEM external Sharp floppy drive which people on ebay are buying fro around 70 dollars because it is discontinued and hard to find. I really do not have any need for floppy disks as i do not use them at all. I was wondering if it was a necessity to have one, because i really would like to sell mine. The only problem i can think of is if i need it to boot the computer or install windows from a boot disk. I do have an external CD-rom drive as well, but I didnt think it could serve this purpose. What do you guys think i should do?
 

Loricariidae

Senior member
Oct 22, 2001
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My Vaio notebook didn't come with a floppy, and I never missed it. I wasn't able to update the bios, but that's not a big deal to me anyhow.

Can your notebook boot over the network? If so, you can definitely dismiss the floppy. But if you could use the cash and can think ahead (and back up important data on the notebook), you'll get by without the archaic floppy drive.
 

sirpado

Senior member
Jun 27, 2001
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i mean, im just wondering how it is possible to boot without a floppy, like by cd or network? this laptop is not very popular, so i do not know if it is possible or not. it is running win 98.
 

Loricariidae

Senior member
Oct 22, 2001
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Go into the bios and check the boot device order - if network is among the choices of IDE, floppy, CD, etc., then you can boot over the network. You might also want to check to see if your CD drive is boot-capable. From my experience, Sony made their notebooks proprietary in that you need to use their CD drive to boot (none of the others I've tried work when booting).

HTH!
 

sirpado

Senior member
Jun 27, 2001
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as of now it doesnt give me another choice, maybe thats because floppy/ or cd not currently in computer. also, is it wise to update bios. i am running on phoenix 4.0 as of now. thanks
 

Siddhartha

Lifer
Oct 17, 1999
12,505
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I have used my laptop's floppy drive for:
1. Transferring files between the laptop and other computers.
2. Booting up the laptop after formatting the hard drive.
 

Cosmic_Horror

Golden Member
Oct 10, 1999
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to be honesty with i would keep the floppy drive just in case..

otherwise you my need to find one and it sounds like it might ciost you quite a bit more later....