USB Floppy Drive - What's the use?

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bbhaag

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2011
7,336
2,918
146
I had to buy one and still own it to load the SATA drivers before an OS install on my wifes old Toshiba laptop. No matter what I tried I just could not get the stupid thing to recognize any usb stick I used.
I loaded the drivers on a disk that I got from my father in law booted up her laptop and it instantly started reading the disk and loading the drivers when I point the Win7 installer to it. I'm not sure why I keep it around though. That old laptop is long gone.
 

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
16,622
2,024
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See observations I made on a concurrent, parallel thread on the usefulness of optical burners.

Both these threads now raise my attention to the urgency of reviewing my store of old floppies, and an effort to upload them to my server so I can sort, delete and save them -- possibly to optical disc.

If one has several computers, there may be no need to outfit them with either optical or floppy devices, but it's a darn good idea to keep a portable USB floppy or optical drive for these projects to save or salvage old data.
 

Carson Dyle

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2012
8,173
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That's crazy that anyone would still have anything of even passing value stored on floppy disk. I have exactly ZERO bytes of data stored on either floppy or optical disk. I have manufacturers' optical software/driver disks, and a number of burned music CDs, and that's about it.

This thread has convinced me to recycle the last of the old floppy drives that I have stashed away in a box. The chances of ever needing to use one again in my lifetime are 1 in a million.
 

ronbo613

Golden Member
Jan 9, 2010
1,237
45
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I still have a floppy drive in an old, but still serviceable computer that is still in daily use. It's been so long since I used it, I don't even know if it works. I had the floppy drive because in my line of work, customers would have them from time to time. I think I have a few floppy discs left somewhere, one of them has the first web site I ever made backed up on it, so it has some nostalgic value, but that's about it.

I would imagine a USB floppy drive would be good to have if you had some kind of media transfer service and wanted to be prepared for any possible situation, I don't know what else it would be good for.
 

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
16,622
2,024
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That's crazy that anyone would still have anything of even passing value stored on floppy disk. I have exactly ZERO bytes of data stored on either floppy or optical disk. I have manufacturers' optical software/driver disks, and a number of burned music CDs, and that's about it.

This thread has convinced me to recycle the last of the old floppy drives that I have stashed away in a box. The chances of ever needing to use one again in my lifetime are 1 in a million.

Not crazy -- just negligent. Truth is, there may not be anything worth saving in that old pile of floppies I've ignored too long.
 

tcsenter

Lifer
Sep 7, 2001
18,933
567
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I have 100s of 3.5-in floppies full of old archives and data. I just pulled a couple at random and they opened just fine - dated 1993!!!!
Get that data off to something else while you still can. I pulled the data off any remaining floppies years ago and put the data on DVD. I do still have a few floppy drives (internal and USB) just in case but that was my thinking 6 years ago. I'm beginning to wonder why I still have them.....
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
70,574
13,804
126
www.anyf.ca
Mostly if you need to retrieve info, as I don't think there's much reason to put stuff on a floppy.

Though if you are forced to give up data to a court or other law related org/person for some reason, nothing beats a 5 1/4" floppy. Make them work for it. :biggrin:
 

cdebbie

Junior Member
Apr 23, 2015
17
0
0
Certainly nowadays they're used to access old data that was stored in floppy disks or due to nostalgia (I've seen some cases like that), but mainly those are the two reasons why people could use these drives to access floppy disks currently.