To floppy or not to floppy?

[VanShania]

Or the consumer is being taken for a ride again!!!!!!!!!

--
Love and Teach, Not Yell and Beat
Stop Violence and Child Abuse.
No such thing as Bad Kids. Only Bad Parents.
Friends don't turn friends on to drugs.
The path often thought about and sometimes chosen by abused children as
adults is Suicide. Be a real friend.

A64 3500+, Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939,AIW 9800 128mb
MSI 550 Pro, X-Fi, Pioneer 110D, 111D
Antec 550 watt,Thermaltake Lanfire,2 Gb Dual Channel OCZ
2XSATA 320gb Raid Edition, PATA 120Gb
XP MCE2005, 19in Viewsonic,BenchMark 2001 SE- 19074
Games I'm Playing- Falcon 4, winSPWW2, winSPMBT

 

[John Doe]

And a 5 1/4" floppy drive could come in handy too. How about a
punched card reader? You never know when one of your friends is
going to show up with a box of punched cards for you to read.




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From: "VanShania" <rvans mts.net>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
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Subject: Re: To floppy or not to floppy?
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Or the consumer is being taken for a ride again!!!!!!!!!

--
Love and Teach, Not Yell and Beat
Stop Violence and Child Abuse.
No such thing as Bad Kids. Only Bad Parents.
Friends don't turn friends on to drugs.
The path often thought about and sometimes chosen by abused children as
adults is Suicide. Be a real friend.

A64 3500+, Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939,AIW 9800 128mb
MSI 550 Pro, X-Fi, Pioneer 110D, 111D
Antec 550 watt,Thermaltake Lanfire,2 Gb Dual Channel OCZ
2XSATA 320gb Raid Edition, PATA 120Gb
XP MCE2005, 19in Viewsonic,BenchMark 2001 SE- 19074
Games I'm Playing- Falcon 4, winSPWW2, winSPMBT

 

[Rod Speed]

Or **** all of them will ever use a floppy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Larry Roberts]

Modern personal computers don't include a floppy drive.


Things change, maybe you can too.

They'll have to pry my floppy drive from my cold dead hands...
case.... :/

 

[Ed Medlin]

Sure there are. But I would rather just use the floppy. Much easier for

Thats arguable. You really need to slipstream the original XP CD with SP2
etc and you might as well include the raid drivers if you actually use
raid.

That is reasonable. I did slipstream SP2 but not the drivers.

And many recent systems dont need the raid drivers
to be loaded very early in the install anymore.

With my system I see no HDDs at all without the drivers. I have just one
regular IDE slot and a couple of optical drives fill that.

I doubt too many of those ever do an XP install, they by the system
preinstalled.

That is true. And most don't even have a "real" XP disk but just have
recovery type disks.

Most dont. And those that do use a decent bootable CD that
allows you to select the dos app from a menu with that CD.


Its only the real dinosaurs that cant boot a CD and thats fixable even
with those.



And few bother with raid.

I probably wouldn't either if I didn't work with a lot of video. Those few
minutes saved really add up over time.

Few do that sort of thing.

But many who work with video and sound editing do.

Sorry about the typo Rod not Ron........

And I was pointing out that you are overstating the need for a floppy.


Its in fact rather more complicated than that, most obviously with
the dos apps where it makes a lot more sense to have a decent
bootable CD instead of farting around with unreliable floppys.

It is likely that when I do my next system, probably sometime early next
year, I may forgo the floppy. I am not sure yet. I agree that there are
various ways around needing one, but it is just my preference right now to
keep it. I seldom boot from it except for diagnostic reasons, like memtest
etc. I don't even have it in my boot sequence in bios. If I need to boot
from it or CD I just need to hit F8 durning post and choose a boot
device.........easy.

Cheers
Ed

 

[Jim]

....almost have my 1st full machine finished. ...trying to decide on whether to put in a floppy drive. I can easily foresee needing
the bay that a floppy would occupy for a harddrive instead (removable tray, etc.). From what I gather, the only likely thing that I
would need a floppy for would be to flash a bios or install a raid driver. I've seen some external USB floppy drives that aren't
that much more than the internals (which are also cheap). ...don't know if they will work without the OS loaded, however. If not,
they wouldn't be any good for the above tasks. Could someone let me know if an external USB will work to boot dos from or otherwise
use with the operating system? ...or if there is some other use for a floppy that I'm overlooking?

Jeff

A floppy might be real handy when helping Aunt Suzie fix her 5 year old
computer. We all know friends and family who don't feel the need for
anything newer and faster than the ancient box they are currently using.

As another reader mentioned go with a unit that also has media card
readers. They come in real handy. The floppy will be a bonus if you
need it sometime.

 

[Conor]

With my system I see no HDDs at all without the drivers. I have just one
regular IDE slot and a couple of optical drives fill that.

Most BIOSes now allow SATA to work in IDE emulation mode.

--
Conor

I'm really a nice guy. If I had friends, they would tell you.

Earn commission on online purchases, £2.50 just for signing up:
http://www.TopCashBack.co.uk/Conor/ref/index.htm

 

[Tomcat (Tom)]

Solution is simple. Buy a conventional floppy.
When you need it, open the side of the computer, and
temporarily connect the floppy. Do what needs to be
done. Shut down, and disconnect the floppy from the
computer.

This is the best solution by far and is what I do. It takes all of 1
minute to pop open the case and connect a floppy. I would rather do it
this way and not have the floppy cable obstructing airflow in the case
all the time.

The only reason I can think of keeping a floppy in a computer
permanently is if you regularly need to transfer files to and from an
older computer that doesn't have USB.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

It takes all of 1 minute to pop open the case and connect
a floppy. I would rather do it this way and not have the
floppy cable obstructing airflow in the case all the time.

There are "round" cables made for floppy drives:
http://svc.com/cables-ata-100-133-round-cables.html

As for popping open the case, that's a 10-minute
operation in some 'puter shacks - mine, for instance.

*TimDaniels*

 

[John Doe]

A floppy might be real handy when helping Aunt Suzie fix her 5
year old computer.

Don't forget a punched card reader. You never know when you're great
grandfather will bring over a box of punched cards
for you to read.

We all know friends and family who don't feel the need for
anything newer and faster than the ancient box they are currently
using.

If your friends and family are that backwards, they wouldn't have a
personal computer in the first place.

As another reader mentioned go with a unit that also has media
card readers. They come in real handy. The floppy will be a
bonus if you need it sometime.

Considering the fact that media card readers are solid-state and
floppy drives are mechanical, that makes no sense.

Floppy drives are like dinosaurs. That's why 99% of new personal
computers don't include them.

Umm, apparently I'm replying to a Linux user. That figures.

 

[Larc]

| Jim <chief_jim go.com> wrote:
|
| > A floppy might be real handy when helping Aunt Suzie fix her 5
| > year old computer.
|
| Don't forget a punched card reader. You never know when you're great
| grandfather will bring over a box of punched cards
| for you to read.

What an utterly ridiculous comparison.

If you don't want a floppy drive, then don't install one. If you're out to
convince the rest of the world that they shouldn't want one either, you've cut
out an impossible task for yourself unless you can come up with some sounder
reasoning than you have so far.

After all, if floppies were as useless as buggy whips as you seem to believe,
floppy drives would be about as difficult to find. Don't you think?

Larc



§§§ - Change planet to earth to reply by email - §§§

 

[John Doe]

| Jim <chief_jim go.com> wrote:
|
| > A floppy might be real handy when helping Aunt Suzie fix her 5
| > year old computer.
|
| Don't forget a punched card reader. You never know when you're
| great grandfather will bring over a box of punched cards for you
| to read.

What an utterly ridiculous comparison.

The major computer manufacturers don't include floppy drives or
punched card readers.

If you don't want a floppy drive, then don't install one.

I'm just trying to help progressive personal computer users avoid an
obsolete technology like a floppy drive. It's a good cause IMO.

If you're a techie, you don't need to ask in the first place.

If you're out to convince the rest of the world that they
shouldn't want one either, you've cut out an impossible task for
yourself unless you can come up with some sounder reasoning than
you have so far.

Apparently I've convinced the major personal computer original
equipment manufacturers (OEM). That's like billions in sales per
year?

After all, if floppies were as useless as buggy whips as you seem
to believe, floppy drives would be about as difficult to find.
Don't you think?

The fact they cost $8 suggests there is almost no demand.

Floppy drive technology is stagnant. SuperDisk was up and coming
until 3M sold that line? Then I think Imation let it die. Didn't
they try selling a combination super-floppy and punched card reader?


Then there's Zip drives. I've got one, almost unused, it's been in a
box for years.

Now I have these neat little things called USB flash drives (thumb
drives, memory sticks). And e-mail. And instant messaging. And CDs.
Having 1 GB flash drives, I don't mess messing with re-writable
CDs either.

 

[Larry Roberts]

The fact they cost $8 suggests there is almost no demand.

So why is SDRAM more expensive compared to DDR, and DDR2? Why
are Socket 370, and Socket A boards so expensive? They are old, and
not many are looking to buy them, but the prices seem to suggest
different. No... I'm series here. Why would I have to pay more to
build an old machine from brand-new parts then building a new machine
from brand-new parts?

 

[JAD]

So why is SDRAM more expensive compared to DDR, and DDR2? Why
are Socket 370, and Socket A boards so expensive? They are old, and
not many are looking to buy them, but the prices seem to suggest
different. No... I'm series here. Why would I have to pay more to
build an old machine from brand-new parts then building a new machine
from brand-new parts?

supply and demand

 

[kevinbeall]

Okay, so help out a brother who is not quite so computer, savvy. If you are
trying to load up XP in RAID 0, how can you do that without a floppy? Can
you just set it to boot off of the USB? I'm trying to figure that out and I
don't really feel like dropping another $8 on something I'll use so
rarely...

 

[John Doe]

Okay, so help out a brother who is not quite so computer, savvy.
If you are trying to load up XP in RAID 0, how can you do that
without a floppy? Can you just set it to boot off of the USB?
I'm trying to figure that out and I don't really feel like
dropping another $8 on something I'll use so rarely...

I searched the USENET archive (a.k.a. Google Groups).

RAID "windows XP" slipstream

Malke wrote:
Slipstream RAID/SATA controller drivers -
http://www.maximumpc.com/2005/01/how_to_slipstre.html

 

[Tomcat (Tom)]

After all, if floppies were as useless as buggy whips as you seem to believe,
floppy drives would be about as difficult to find. Don't you think?

Floppy drives are indeed easy to find. Just look in the junk parts
closet of any computer shop. They are basically dead and it's stupid
to install one permanently on any computer. It wastes a drive bay and
makes the case more cramped with unnecessary cabling. I keep a floppy
drive in the closet just in case I might need it someday but in 5 years
I haven't needed one.

 

[Ed Medlin]

With my system I see no HDDs at all without the drivers. I have just one
regular IDE slot and a couple of optical drives fill that.

Most BIOSes now allow SATA to work in IDE emulation mode.

Even if I set the bios to IDE XP install will not see them unless I install
the ICH6 SATA drivers. The same with the ITE 8212 IDE controller. I have to
install both for all my drives to show up at all.

Ed

 

[Rich Mayo]

I have to agree with Tom's stance. I needed my floppy drive only once
-- to boot the PC to Windows 98 and run fdisk /mbr. The job took about
a minute.

You'll almost never need the drive and for those very rare jobs that
absolutely require one, open the case and connect up a spare temporarily.



R.

 

[Crispy Critter]

Floppy drives are indeed easy to find. Just look in the junk parts
closet of any computer shop. They are basically dead and it's stupid
to install one permanently on any computer. It wastes a drive bay and
makes the case more cramped with unnecessary cabling. I keep a floppy
drive in the closet just in case I might need it someday but in 5 years
I haven't needed one.

All cases come with at least one drive bay specifically for floppy drives
so how is it wasting a drive bay?