Do you really need a floppy drive?...

Joined
16 Jan 2004
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115
Hi...Just curious...is it safe to disable the floppy drive?...I really no longer have any need for a floppy drive and after all it shaves a second or two off boot-up and shutdown times.

I am using Windows XP.

Thanks from Colin. :)
 
no need at all, i dont even have one on my laptop :p
 
The only real reason I see for a floppy drive is for updating bioses and if you don't intend to backup your current bios you don't even need that these days! (bootable cds!)
 
I use a boot disk (cd). My floppy part of the motherboard is cream crackered so don't work no more anyway.

I have a zip 100 drive external. I last used a floppy 13 months ago. I heard they are going to be phased out.
 
No need for floppies. Most laptops and quite a number of desktops are now sold without them. However you use your machine is up to you as an individual. I think I will be keeping a functional floppy in mine for another 2yrs or so, just in case I need to boot from floppy into DOS (win98).
 
Dont have a floppy in my machine, havent in ages - just dont need them anymore.
For flashing my BIOS I have an MSI board so I can just do it within Windows :)
 
Laptop doesnt have one... made it tough when I wanted to install slackware linux
 
I need it for installing my raid array during the windows setup, that is about it. then it remains dormant till my next overhaul.
 
Thanks for all your replies guys...really appreciated :)

I have'nt actually physically removed it...I have just disabled it in the bios and removed it from the boot sequence...(I need it for my two sata's drivers)...Hopefully even this function will become redundant when Longhorn comes out as I suspect it will include promise drivers.

Thanks for all your help...Colin
 
Another time you might need it is getting (small amounts) of data, like a document quickly to another computer. Most other computers have floppies so it just makes it a bit more convenient. USB drives will generally do the trick, provided it's not something stupid like Windows 95.
And it's also just as annoying when someone gives you something on a floppy. And it seems to be no excuse complaining that floppies are old and outdated, the person just laughes at you.

Don't worry floppies will die soon enough, I still haven't got one in my new system but I will probably put one there eventually. We can finally give them up only as soon as companies stop packaging them to the less experienced users.

Disabling it is fine. You can always enable it again.

Patrick
 
Don't even have one in my machine. Haven't used a 3.25 in years, evil slow buggers! :D
 
What SPeedY said ^^

Electronic Punk said:
The only real reason I see for a floppy drive is for updating bioses and if you don't intend to backup your current bios you don't even need that these days! (bootable cds!)

Recently, manufacturers have been releasing BIOS flash software that works through Windows itself. Dell has been releasing all their FlashBIOS upgrades for my laptop this way. It's beautiful.
grin.gif


PseudoKiller said:
Laptop doesnt have one... made it tough when I wanted to install slackware linux

Hmm...what was the problem? The Slackware CD is bootable.
 
Only for installing the Promise Raid drivers when installing WinXP and BIOS upgrade.
 
i upgraded my BIOS yesterday with a bootable DOS CD :D

fortunately i don't need RAID drivers to install XP...yet.
 
None of my machines have floppies. I use bootable CD's for most of my upgrading needs. I also have a boot-capable USB flash drive.
 
Right now, with slight regret, I am transferring several megs from a friends very old computer, one meg at a time using a floppy disk.
Network card? I don't think so.
PCI? I doubt it, it's probably ISA but then you'd have to find drivers for windows 95...
USB Network? Nope there's no USB port
I was even tempted to try using a direct serial connection but of course I'd then have to do it with no mouse since the mouse uses the only serial port.

I'm taking a full floppy off it each time and taking it to the computer in the next room. I can't simply stick it in my computer next to me, my nice new system, since it doesn't have a floppy drive yet. And to top it all off I cut my thumb again on my darn CPU fan so I'm doing all this with one hand. Oh the joys of computing lol

Patrick
 

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Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
Xie wrote on Electronic Punk's profile.
Impressed you have kept this alive this long EP! So many sites have come and gone. :(

Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
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Rest in peace my friend, been trying to find you and finally did in the worst way imaginable.

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