Do you still use your floppy drive?

[buckmasterson]

I've had it with people who must have a floppy. With all of the alternatives out there, do you still use yours?

 

[mrweirdo]

Nope I havent used a floppy in ages. I just took the one out of my main system finaly because it was needed to get sata drivers loaded on some new comps i built that didnt have floppys. I use a pen drive to transfer my files around now mostly between home and college. Then when I'm there I mainly use my network storage. Unfortionently i have a pen drive thats not bootable so i cant use it for such things as loading utils from it etc.

 

[buckmasterson]

I've been buying floppys at NewEgg for people who want them. I've had 3 doa's in the last 6 I bought. RMA'ing them is a joke, as the postage costs more than the stupid floppy. My builds have front USB, but do you think I can talk people into pen drives? :disgust:

 

[Jeff H]

I still use a floppy for the following reasons. One, I have my HD set up on an onboard RAID controller (as a single drive) and XP requires a floppy present during setup. Two, I use an ancient program (MS Works 4.5) for keeping track of a number of items, via its database function. I don't want those files residing on my system, even though it's behind a firewall and they're protected via Winzip passwords. Three, I "support" a number of friends and relatives, some w/ older machines, and a floppy is an easy way to transport files.

That said, I'm getting a lot of use out of three thumbdrives that I have (16MB and 64MB Lexar JumpDrives, 256MB Lexar JumpDrive 2.0 Pro). But, those "friends and relatives" machines I mentioned typically don't have USB ports, and if they do, they're still running Win98, and then I have to fool w/ USB drivers.

 

[bacillus]

yup, the floppy needs to be alive & kicking if you use win2k or xp & require third party drivers like scsi or raid to be installed at setup.

 

[EeyoreX]

Since we are going to revisit this issue for the umteenth time, yes. I occassionally do use my floppy. For the simeple reason that the "other alternatives" are not always workable. Until the "other alternatives" are 100% reliable (not as in hardware reliability, as in, it will work for what is needed) 100% of the time and 100% as easy, the floppy is not going to go away. There are too many computers in the population that don't support USB booting, especially in the corporate world. There is a need for them during installs of Windows 2000/XP if you want to use many RAID/IDE/SCSI controllers during install. And the plain and simply truth of the matter nothing is a simple and gauranteed compatiable as the floppy drive. As an aside, I find the inclusion of the Zip and the exclusion of the LS 120 drives somewhat laughable. The Zip has all but fallen out of favor, and the LS 120 SuperDrive never took off to fullfill the potential that it should have as a high capacity device with the needed backwards compatability of the reliable, simple, floppy.

\Dan

 

[MichaelZ]

yes.

twice a week when it comes to tiny files between computers. tell ya the truth i don't really want to let the floppy go. it's still useful if you're just copying a word file and using it on another computer.

also for startup. i'd feel rather helpless if i didn't have my 98 boot disk to get me out of some problems. fdisk and format, they still rock

 

[brainwave]

I have almost completely replaced the need for a floppy with a combination of USB thumbdrives, zip drives, and networking. I also agree that floppy drives have become less reliable. It's only a matter of time until the end for floppies, and that time is approaching.

JeffH--BTW, that "ancient" program you are using (MSWorks 4.5) is still one of the most useful, user friendly, integrated programs. Unfortunately, the newer versions have unintegrated the program, and so the "ancient" version is better. Just goes to show not everything improves with age and not everything old is obsolete! (including me)

 

[Abos]

I still use floppy... I'm too damn cheap to upgrade to USB pen drives, ZIP drives are way too uncommon, and burning is overkill for little text files.

 

[ROJAS]

When using Norton Ghost I found the floppy to be the way to go. Other ways would be to burn a cd and boot from it.

ROJAS

 

[theanimala]

My PC doesn't even have a floppy, although it would have been convienent probably 3 times over the past 2 years...

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

Nope, Don't have one in the box anymore allthough I do have an external USB FDD for the rare occasion that I need one.

 

[Lonyo]

What if you don't use one and don't use an alternative either?

 

[Yellowsun]

I can say that I only have a floppy drive in one of my computers, I have replaced it with Pen Drives, CDRW and Networking

I still have one floppy drive on my network storage system, pen drives are much better faster and much more reliable

 

[Abhi]

No...

 

[0roo0roo]

pendrive is so useful.
floppy. mine broke so no more, and not missed so don't care.

 

[JBT]

I have a floppy I use it to flash my bios and install SATA drivers. Other than that I don't use it though. I have a 128 mb Pen drive for everything else.

 

[Cheetah8799]

I keep my floppy drives around just in case. Normally for BIOS updates, etc. For the most part I use my 64mb usb pen drive, and cd burners...

 

[Jeff H]

brainwave,, so true about MS Works. That flat file database in Works has been a godsend for keeping track of numerous things, including website usernames/passwords, credit card info, paint by room, etc.

[ROJAS,[/i] forgot about Ghost. A floppy is indispensible for that app.

 

[Zepper]

Geez, how many times a year does this thread pop up??? There IS a search capability here.
Here's just the latest previous thread: Linkage
.bh.

 

[airfoil]

I use a floppy drive, but only because I'm forced to use the RAID0 driver off a floppy during OS installation. I did get one of those Mitsumi 7-in-one drives which act as Memory readers/writers in addition to the plain ol floppy drive.

 

[MDE]

My response from the other thread

I only use mine for SATA drivers during Windows installs.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: MDE
My response from the other thread

I only use mine for SATA drivers during Windows installs.

look here

and then throw your floppy to your dog

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: MDE
My response from the other thread

I only use mine for SATA drivers during Windows installs.

look here

and then throw your floppy to your dog

:Q Bookmarked!

 

[RPB]

usb floppy for bios upgrades so i guess thats a yes.