Those without 3.5" floppy drives -- how do you do it?

[idea]

How can you live without one? As far as my BIOS updates, win98 boot disk, memtest86, and other things.. I don't think I could remove mine.

 

[Sukhoi]

Yeah, I have no idea either.

 

[WinkOsmosis]

I use my roommate's.

 

[slydecix]

a cd burner, my friend... it's an amazing piece of technology

 

[agnitrate]

a flop-what?

I haven't used one in like 3 years. Long live booting from CD!

-silver

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: Elitebull
a cd burner, my friend... it's an amazing piece of technology

You know, my roommate has the same attitude.

Funny how many times he's asked to pull my box apart to steal my floppy.



Viper GTS

 

[Nocturnal]

I've been without a floppy for the past few days. I'm too lazy to hook it up to the computer. I would love to flash my bios but I can't for the life of me find a floppy disk.

 

[speg]

Yeah I hate floppies, they only end up working for me half the time. For the past year or so I've only been using CDR's or just putting the files on my webspace and downloading them back down at school or wherever.

 

[Electrode]

Well, until there's a new cheap bootable medium that can be read and written randomly without additional software (zip and mo are expensive, cdrw needs software, usb isn't bootable) the 3.5" floppy is definately here to stay. Apple and Dell can go fvck themselves.

 

[slydecix]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: Elitebull
a cd burner, my friend... it's an amazing piece of technology

You know, my roommate has the same attitude.

Funny how many times he's asked to pull my box apart to steal my floppy.



Viper GTS

well, I'd just burn onto a cd and boot from it... but I haven't had to do so in like, a couple years at least... this system is rock solid

 

[pdo]

you can make a bootable cd's to boot into DOS and flash your BIOS from there. I have get rid of my floppy a few years back already..

 

[slydecix]

Originally posted by: Electrode
Well, until there's a new cheap bootable medium that can be read and written randomly without additional software (zip and mo are expensive, cdrw needs software, usb isn't bootable) the 3.5" floppy is definately here to stay. Apple and Dell can go fvck themselves.

you can get regular cd-r's for next to nothing

 

[BigSmooth]

I rarely use mine but considering it costs like 10 bucks, it's nice to have. Plus, my gf is in school and sometimes it's easier for her to use a floppy to move documents from computer to computer.

 

[nord1899]

I can't recall the last time I used a floppy disk. I just use WinFlash for BIOS updates.

The Win98 boot disk would be useful, if I didn't run NTFS under WinXP Pro.

The 1.44mb of data transfer is great too.

 

[MichaelD]

Ah, you speak of the "I am way cooler than you; I don't NEED a floppy crowd?"

See, they DON'T manage w/o a floppy....for more than a few weeks or so. When it comes time to load a driver during W2K load, they miss the floppy very much. They just like to pretend they are cooler than we Floppy Warriors.

 

[LOLyourFace]

why on earth do you even need floppies anymore?

I stopped wasting my $20~ on floppy drives for my hand-built systems.

XP boots from CD, I upload my hw to my email and print them from library, etc...

absolutely no need.

 

[yoda291]

Bootable cds and, iirc, you can boot from a flash drive too nowadays. I only have floppy drives in my old machines that don't support boot from cdrom...but all my floppies die on me with any form of regular use. CDs are a superior technology.

 

[NeoPTLD]

I love my floppy drive. It's the best for carrying small documents back and forth.

"drag and drop" file handling is far from being perfect with CD-RWs. It has a lot of compatibility and reliability issues.

 

[jaeger66]

I haven't used a floppy drive in over 2 years. All my boot disks are CDROMs. There is nothing I can do on a floppy that I can't do on a CD.

 

[jaeger66]

Originally posted by: Electrode
Well, until there's a new cheap bootable medium that can be read and written randomly without additional software (zip and mo are expensive, cdrw needs software, usb isn't bootable) the 3.5" floppy is definately here to stay. Apple and Dell can go fvck themselves.

I've owned several mobos that can boot from USB.

 

[LOLyourFace]

Originally posted by: NeoPTLD
I love my floppy drive. It's the best for carrying small documents back and forth.

"drag and drop" file handling is far from being perfect with CD-RWs. It has a lot of compatibility and reliability issues.

floppy disks are extremely fragile. that's what I hate about it as a student carrying it in a bag...

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: idea
How can you live without one?

Uh, it's not hard.

As far as my BIOS updates


DOS Partition

win98 boot disk

Don't need it

memtest86

Linux version that works with lilo

I don't think I could remove mine.

Sure you could, but there's no reason to if you already have one.

 

[NeoPTLD]

Originally posted by: LOLyourFace

Originally posted by: NeoPTLD
I love my floppy drive. It's the best for carrying small documents back and forth.

"drag and drop" file handling is far from being perfect with CD-RWs. It has a lot of compatibility and reliability issues.

floppy disks are extremely fragile. that's what I hate about it as a student carrying it in a bag...

Have you ever used InCD or other drag and drop CD recording programs?

If the computer crashes before it's done closing the table, you lose the whole disc's content. It takes a long time to close the table.

 

[yoda291]

small documents are best carried electronically via email/ftp/httpd space. That way, I don't have to rely on some floppy that could have 12 lbs of crap sitting on top of it for an hour.

 

[Electrode]

Originally posted by: jaeger66
I've owned several mobos that can boot from USB.

But would you flash your BIOS from it?