How many people still use floppys?

MisterChief

Banned
Dec 26, 2004
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If you don't anymore, what do you use? Personally, I like to use memory sticks: cheap, easey to use and transport, and are very versatile
 

stevty2889

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2003
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I still have a floppy drive sitting inside my closet, but not in any PC's. I have my SATA raid drives slipstreamed in to my windows CD, and the motherboards I have, allow flashing bios from windows(well not sure about my new one on that).
 

cyberknight

Senior member
Sep 3, 2004
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I originally built my system with a floppy, but I took out the floppy a month ago when I bought my USB hard drive.
Less wiring to worry about for a product I rarely use, but I'll keep it around incase I need to flash or something. I'm thinking of just getting a USB Floppy for these purposes.
 

Theguynextdoor

Golden Member
Nov 17, 2004
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Originally posted by: cyberknight
I originally built my system with a floppy, but I took out the floppy a month ago when I bought my USB hard drive.
Less wiring to worry about for a product I rarely use, but I'll keep it around incase I need to flash or something. I'm thinking of just getting a USB Floppy for these purposes.

In flash do you mean flash your BIOS? If so how are you going to do it with a USB floppy? Or do you do it in windows?
 
Mar 19, 2003
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Originally posted by: SpunkyJones
Originally posted by: Theguynextdoor
Still use one, for the SATA drives and BIOS updates.

Although it's literally been months since I've used it...I just have my SATA driver disk in the drive permanently, because that's my last remaining use for it. Even so, I haven't reinstalled Windows XP since last April. I also flash my BIOS from Windows now. 20 years later, the damn thing is finally on its way out....:p
 

aznbomber

Senior member
Dec 22, 2004
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I still own a couple of old computers and a 2 year old laptop (but still very powerful) that cant boot off of usb flash drives yet. So yes I still rely on floppy drives to get some stuff done.
 

Insomniak

Banned
Sep 11, 2003
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I have one on hand to connect to PCs during the first boot to install SATA drivers etc if needed...I usually don't install it though - I just connect it, do what I need to do, and then disconnect it and uninstall it in windows. After the system is set up, with the advent of Flash Drives, there really is no need for floppies anymore.
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
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old habits are hard to break...memtest..bios's all benefit from my floppy use..

Maybe if someone explain to me a better alternative i'd quit using them..
 

amol

Lifer
Jul 8, 2001
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i use floppys

especially for document backups

dont need a huge backup hard drive or pen drive
 

Amaroque

Platinum Member
Jan 2, 2005
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I only use a floppy when I have no other choice. It sits in my system, but is rarely ever even hooked up.

Edit: I hate floppys. Whenever I can (better than 99% of the time), I use a USB flash drive.
 

Philippine Mango

Diamond Member
Oct 29, 2004
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I use the floppy drive all the time, do I really need to burn a 500KB file onto a friggen CD? (people do the stupidest things) I use floppys when I need to transfer a word document from one computer to another when I don't have network capability available.
 

djdrastic

Senior member
Dec 4, 2002
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If you've ever been a sysadmin , you'd learn to love the floppy , as many old / and new utils still require it
 

Amaroque

Platinum Member
Jan 2, 2005
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Originally posted by: djdrastic
If you've ever been a sysadmin , you'd learn to love the floppy , as many old / and new utils still require it

No, I'd hate them all the more.
 

her34

Senior member
Dec 4, 2004
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once windows install let's you search for drivers either off usb drive or another cd (temporarily swap out windows cd), i will no longer keep a fdd in my comp
 

dug777

Lifer
Oct 13, 2004
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heh-for those among u who still have ur floppy connected but think u don't use it-unplug it & put it away in a drawer somewhere...then u'll discover xactly how useful it is 2 have the floppy drive :p

Even with a network it's usually a damn sight easier 2drop ur word doc on a floppy (always nice not 2have 2 root around under a desk trying 2 shove a chunky usb thumb drive into a dusty & ill-lit usb drive!) and take it around with u-from personal xperience there's nothing more annoying that walking all the way over 2the lab 2 do some printing only 2 discover the network is playing silly buggers with u :(
 

stevty2889

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2003
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We still use floppies at work though. Although strange thing is, when you stick a disk in the floppy drive, windows locks up..guess windows forgot how to use a floppy drive..only way to get the computers to read the disk, is to put the disk in when it is powered off, bring up the boot menu when it's starting up, and tell it to boot from the hard drive so it doesn't try to boot from the floppy..if at any time whatsoever you put a floppy disk in while the computer is already running, it instantly locks up..
 

Eug

Lifer
Mar 11, 2000
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Originally posted by: LED
How many people still use floppys?
90+% of PC users
Heh. My Cube from 2000 and my TiBook from 2002 don't have floppies. I have one in my Celeron Tualatin 1.4, but that mobo is from 1998.

Are there still computers made today that can't be boot off USB? Just wondering. Cuz I think the floppy should have been retired across the board in new machines several years ago. It'd be nice if all USB pen drives were bootable.
 

hopejr

Senior member
Nov 8, 2004
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My PC's all have floppy drives, but I never use them. I just use the network to transfer stuff. My mac has no floppy drive, and again I just use the network.
For small files I'm taking away, I use a re-writable CD or a USB key.

My step mother uses floppies still, but that's coz she was recommended to use them by the tax office because according to the tax guy, they're a reliable medium to backup your tax records on. When I told her this was crap, she thought I was trying to make her life difficult (because I'm her step son, and step sons do that) and started to cry.