Do you really need a floppy drive?...

brodyhooperquintbrodyhooperquint
edited April 2004 in Hardware
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.

Comments

  • NecropolisNecropolis Hawarden, Wales Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    I dont even have one in my machine anymore. I only connect the thing up when I wanted to flash the bios and I dont even need to do that any more now you can flash it in windows. So yes, you can safely disable it
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    I keep a couple around to to use loading drives, but my machines don't have them either.
  • CreepCreep Hell Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    I haven't had a floppy drive in a couple of years. But, to update your BIOS without one you have to be using the FAT32 file format. It won't work with NTFS, or at least Award flash wouldn't.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    I don't have a floppy drive in any of my PCs.

    I've used the windows BIOS flash utilities in both Abit and Asus motherboards with NTFS without issues.
  • NecropolisNecropolis Hawarden, Wales Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    Creep wrote:
    I haven't had a floppy drive in a couple of years. But, to update your BIOS without one you have to be using the FAT32 file format. It won't work with NTFS, or at least Award flash wouldn't.

    That depends on the board you are using. My NF7-S you can flash the BIOS through Windows XP.
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    I still find mine quite useful for moving smaller files between systems. I do own a jump drive, but my parents' system does not have easily accessible USB ports.

    More pertinent to your question though, no, it is not necessary any more. It's probably the oldest bit of legacy software in your system and its number is quickly running out in the industry from what I see.
  • brodyhooperquintbrodyhooperquint
    edited April 2004
    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 putting my mind at rest.

    Thanks for all your help...Colin
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    General Keebler wrote:
    I still find mine quite useful for moving smaller files between systems. I do own a jump drive, but my parents' system does not have easily accessible USB ports.

    More pertinent to your question though, no, it is not necessary any more. It's probably the oldest bit of legacy software in your system and its number is quickly running out in the industry from what I see.

    It would be nice to have one for a few things:

    Western Digital HD Diagnostics, for example. That would save a tech from needing to stick the HD into a different computer that has a floppy drive to diagnose it, or reset BIOS if drive is present but fully disabled in BIOS.

    Emergency floppy booting of Linux or BSD.

    CDs can be made that will do these things, but most of the CD burn space ends up wasted. Reason: safest way to make a bootable CD that can boot on almost anything is to brun it as a DAO (Disk at Once) burn. Then, with a CD-R blank, you have made a CD that cannot be added to unless you repeat the presvious burn in a new burn in free area as well as the new stuff. This actually has been done, the TOC area on CD-Rs is erasable, but the DATA area is not erasable-- doing it successfully results in CDs that only work on some few computers, and is a REAL Pita to do.

    John D.-- who will add that in this case, I would leave floppy in for a tech to be able to quickly diagnose things, costs less if he or she has to spend less time with computer. And, as a tech, I have not found a universally usable USB floppy drive that can be used to boot from on all computers. So, if I got a floppyless box, I would have to make a CD to boot to run certain utils, or find one-- or I would have to install a floppy drive into box and chanrge for install and config time, and I would SELL the floppy drive to such a user\computer owner. The decreased time\labor bill on next service call or two would totally cover those costs. Even Norton Rescue Disks can be floppy based, and a write-protected floppy set with CURRENT AV defs is a decent way to get uncorrupted AV running on a box.

    John D.
  • CyrixInsteadCyrixInstead Stoke-on-Trent, England Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    I have one in my machine. Nearly never use it, but it has been a life saver at times.

    ~Cyrix
  • floppybootstompfloppybootstomp Greenwich New
    edited April 2004
    The way prices are, a CD-R costs about the same as a floppy disk now anyway. Recently made a bootable CD-R that runs Memtest86, you can d/l an ISO for it, very useful.

    I've left my floppy drives in, mostly for flashing BIOS but I also have a couple of hard disk management programs that boot from a floppy and I also use Disk Image from one as well.

    I suppose the day will come when I dispose of them, but not yet, they not obtrusive and I do actually use them.

    Oh yes, that's the other use, just thought of it, hitting F6 when loading XP for RAID drivers.
  • TheSmJTheSmJ
    edited April 2004
    brodyhooperquint wrote:
    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 putting my mind at rest.

    Thanks for all your help...Colin

    I never use mine, accept when I have to load SATA RAID drivers, etc.

    I wont remove it until I don't need it AT ALL. Until then, I might as well keep it in the system, and enabled. Otherwise, what's the point of removing/disabling it
    just so you have to reinable it again when it comes time to use it?
  • floppybootstompfloppybootstomp Greenwich New
    edited April 2004
    TheSmJ wrote:
    Otherwise, what's the point of removing/disabling it
    just so you have to reinable it again when it comes time to use it?

    I do believe he said it gives him a quicker boot time. Which is probably a desirable thing ;)
  • BlackHawkBlackHawk Bible music connoisseur There's no place like 127.0.0.1 Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    cd-rw's :D
  • TheSmJTheSmJ
    edited April 2004
    CD-RWs aren't anywher NEAR as fast and as easy to burn, and in the case of loading SATA drivers during the Winblows install, you dont have the capability to use the CD-ROM.

    And how much does it slow down your boot time? A half second?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    I will keep using floppy drives until:

    - CD-R/DVD-R//RW burning is as fast and convenient (and reliable) as creating floppies.

    - USB pen drives are reasonably priced.

    Sure, I burn CDs, but it's just not simple and fast for small programs as is copying to a floppy.
  • EyesOnlyEyesOnly Sweden New
    edited April 2004
    Good points leo. I've been thinking about this as i'm about to get a new system but i do see a need for floppies at some point so for now it's prolly best to keep it. Pendrives seems to be a good replacement but not at their current price and it does seem wastefull to use cd:s.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    When Windows starts allowing me to choose the location of my SATA/RAID drivers, then my six year old floppy drive will finally be laid to rest. Until then..
  • dak125dak125
    edited April 2004
    I still use mine. Mainly for transferring papers around campus. I see no reason to get rid of it, so it's staying in there :).
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited April 2004
    All of my computers still have floppy drives. All of those floppy drives work properly. If one dies, it gets replaced.

    Why? Because they're still very common, they still come in handy for installing RAID drivers, BIOS flashing, etc., they're dirt cheap, and if I need one, I'd like to have it installed and all hooked up and everything so I don't have to deal with the hassle of digging one out of one of my parts drawers, hooking it all up, etc.
  • KwitkoKwitko Sheriff of Banning (Retired) By the thing near the stuff Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    I rarely use mine, but I have it in case I have to create a boot disk or do a BIOS flash for any of the PCs I work on for customers.
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