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Floppy Disks, gone or completely forgotten?


Who still uses Floppy Discs?  

60 members have voted

  1. 1. Who still uses Floppy Discs?

    • I still use 'em.
      12
    • I still keep a drive in my PC but very rarely use it.
      23
    • Don't use them any more.
      18
    • What's a Floppy Disc?
      5


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Yes, blank CDs are really cheap, cheaper than my time anyways - but i still don't like to "waste" one.

@prathapml no, I was talking primarily to update firmwares, that won't work too well in VMWare :lol: (anyone tried to flash the virtual BIOS yet?)

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I am midway, I have some machines with onboard floppy drivers and some without.

Best thing is to have an external USB one to attach when needed, i.e. bios updating, emergency boot, etc.

jaclaz

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  • 1 year later...

I've just bought a new 3.5" floppy drive, so I can transfer documents my Dad saves in Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS (apparently lots of people still use that version!) to my computer whenever there's a problem with his computer. It's just easier than having him exit out and send it to my computer over the network, and WPDOS doesn't recognize CDR/DVDR drives... besides those are too slow (lead-in/lead-out) for such small files.

All in all, I still think that the floppy is the superior short-term storage method for small files, and it's pretty much universally compatible.

Emailing files to myself was usually enough when I had to print term papers on the school printer, but every now and then, I'd get to school to find out that the school network was down, so I would ride back home to put it on a CD-R... that was a pain. I wish I had the wherewithall to put a FDD in my old computers when I was still there.

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Still use 'em. System drive pre-partitioning with EFDISK.EXE (MasterBooter) and FORMAT.COM; killing hard drives with Norton Disk Editor; MemTest86+; fixing drives with BootMaster Partition Recovery... Not just my own but also the ones I get in from other people for repair/cleaning. It's just more universal, and, as someone said earlier, "I don't like to waste CDs".

I used to use a floppy for flashing the BIOS but I leave the BIOS files on a FAT32 partition now, so the floppy is only used to boot into DOS in this case.

I've never really liked CDs... They're too small for backups and it takes a long time to burn one of my 4x CD-RWs so I use DVD+RWs instead (which require a DVD-ROM, though). And I switched back to vinyl in 1994... LOL

But I always suggest to other people to try to ditch the floppy. Most of them still want it for "their banking". IMO, this is safer than USB sticks, though, as USB sticks are more likely to be stolen than floppy disks, haha!

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I still use floppies, for transfers of small files and other things that are too small to put on a CD. I still have a large box of them containing various older programs and data... and I'm one of the few to have a 2.88M drive and some diskettes too. I still have a 5.25" drive in my system between the DVD±RW and the CD-RW, and I'm trying to get an 8" floppy drive installed to read some *very* old 8" floppies someone gave me... I like full backwards compatibility :)

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i removed my floppy drive a year and a half ago... im sick & tired of it because its too slow & it is very sensitive... my relatives & friends used to have their floppy disks inserted on my PC as well as infecting it with viruses from their campus :realmad:

right now, they are obliged to buy a USB stick.. w/c is far way faster & more useful.. :)

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You're talking about those 5 1/4 inch and 8 inch disks right. ;)

Seems like everyone I run into anymore calls the 3 1/2 inch floppies hard disks.

I still have a 5 1/4 around here somewhere just incase some other old timer comes by and needs to get something off of one of those disks, happens about twice a year. Otherwise I put the 3 1/2 in the machine when I need it.

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*remebers the days of installing windows 3.1 from a set of 6 floppy disks..* LOL

since my last post in this topic, i've removed my floppy disk drive.. just isn't important anymore, especially with bartpe cd's packed to the rim with tools.. got a network if i ever need to transfer files.

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