if you were building a computer, would you still stick a floppy drive in it?

[KingofBladez]

Id still stick one in a new computer.

The only thing I use it for regularly is taking documents to school...burning a CD is a waste, it takes longer to do the lead in/out than to burn the actual file.

 

[SilverBack]

I havent had one in my system for several years.
Intel is dropping support for the floppy drive this coming year anyway,
The decision has been made by them. It's doomed

What you will see however is support for bootable USB devices, which is really an intelligent way to go.

 

[hungry4eva]

yes sir!

sure would

dang classes still uses floppies

 

[Siddhartha]

"how else would you flash yur bios?

heres what i use my floppy for.

bios flash
emergency boot disk.
registry backup
HD utilities
Transfering small files for class work.
Transfering Word files between computers.

you are extremely lucky if you can go 3 years without the first 3."

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

<< "how else would you flash yur bios?

heres what i use my floppy for.

bios flash
emergency boot disk.
registry backup
HD utilities
Transfering small files for class work.
Transfering Word files between computers.

you are extremely lucky if you can go 3 years without the first 3." >>


you can use a cd for all of those, although i realize that the last 2 would not be quite as convenient. but if you just need a boot/dos/bios-flash/etc disk, CD's work great.

 

[Mitzi]

if you were building a computer, would you still stick a floppy drive in it?

Yes, why not - they hardly cost anything and they connect to their own interface so you wont gain anything by not including a floppy.

 

[Gstanfor]

Floppy drives are still occasionally useful.

What I would like to see happen though is that modern motherboards lose the old floppy drive cable altogether (case interior clutterer) and interface to the floppy via USB. It should be no problem to write a BIOS to boot from that.

Greg

 

[Mem]

Yes I still use my floppy drive & I do have CDRW as well,I find them handy for very small files I like to backup,plus they can be used for bootdisks,they may be small but I still have lots of old floppies lying around over the last 8 years.They are also so cheap to buy .

 

[Dan]

Do I absolutely "need" a floppy drive? No, not really. Do I find uses for one? Yes. Others have listed those uses, e.g., bios flashes. Inherent in floppy drives is the convenience factor.

 

[RaiderJ]

Heck, I even used my old 5.25" drive in the past year. A big ol' floppy disk came with some of my buddies' engineering books, and we of course had to see what kind of weird stuff they would put on it.

I use it for Windows 98 boot disks, WD Lifeguard tools, Norton GHOST, and to move files (small ones) back and forth with my friends. 99% of computers have a floppy drive.... maybe we are all just victims of peer pressure!

 

[Athlon4all]

I still use it in both of my rigs.

 

[Ausm]

Unfortunately it is still needed


Ausm

 

[ProviaFan]

I still have a floppy in my main rig, since I get files on floppy disks all the time, but my parent's internet browsing rig doesn't have a floppy, since it doesn't need one (they'd never use the floppy even if there was one).

 

[Dreadogg]

yes! A floopy drive is always nice for simple backups and remember not everyone has cd burner to backup stuff so you both can share files! Anyways you can get them for under 10 dolllars.

 

[J Heartless Slick]

Yep!

 

[jj1492]

I probably would simply because every now and then I need that boot disk.

 

[anthrax]

Nope, you don't really need one.....I prefer to use a USB device and share it with my PCs and notebook....

 

[gdawson6]

I need it for bios flashing and other stuff....but i would never use one for storage.

 

[butch84]

ill keep my floppy untill all boot disks are on cds

 

[SCSIfreek]

Yes, its only $10 and could use as a boot disk, and bios upgrade.

--Scsi

 

[GregMal]

If Intel is dropping its support for floppies in its future chipsets,
how are they allowing users to upgrade the BIOS??????
My answer to the question is YES, YES, YES!!!
Greg

 

[AA0]

You can flash your bios from windows. No need for a boot disk, anyone who buys a board that isn't stable deserves to have it wrecked if windows crashes anyway.

 

[ojai00]

It would be better to have it. If you're doing papers and stuff, you can't save it to a CD-R because it's read only. Floppies are more easier to carry around small documents and pictures and stuff. It's small, but it's pretty useful. You can use Zip disks, but not all computers have Zip drives.

 

[skriefal]

Yes, for BIOS flashing, emergency boot disks, etc. Why not, when you probably have one already? And even if you don't, plenty of used computers shops have them for $5 or so.

 

[Mem]

<< You can flash your bios from windows. No need for a boot disk, anyone who buys a board that isn't stable deserves to have it wrecked if windows crashes anyway. >>



Not all boards can be flashed from Windows,Epox for example recommend floppy method,plus I`ve read too many horror stories about bios flashing in windows,why chance it when bootdisk is less risky even for a stable system.