# "Save The Floppy" or "Dump The Floppy"?



## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

In about a day or so, I will crack the case to re-hookup my 1TB Seagate drive to back it up to another 1TB drive, install about 4GB of RAM (Vista 64 and Win 7-64 will soar) and I can blow out some dust. And, I'm coming to a decision.... "Save The Floppy" or "Dump The Floppy" on my box?

Now, mind you, when I went from Apple to PCs in 1989, the 3-1/2" drive was the new thing on the PCs. They held 1.44 MB in comparison to the 1.2MB floppy discs. But, they were more sturdier. Zip Drives, at 100MB, could have overthrown old floppy, but, alas, Zip has long been abandoned. 

When I configured my systems, I remember setting my 5-1/4" drive to A: and 3-1/2" drive to B:. Then, I turned around and set my BIOS to boot directly to C: without scanning for the floppies first. However, a few years ago, the motherboards only supported one floppy, not two, and the 5-1/4" was discarded. I don't even have one in archive storage. 

Now, the decision comes to pull the floppy. It's been a year since I put in a floppy from someone else. It is just sitting there doing nothing. It's just another cable that gets in the way.

Or should I keep it just for legacy sake? Hmmmm...... I'll let you decide....


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## cadet502 (Jun 17, 2005)

I keep a usb floppy in the drawer, just in case...


.


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## HDJulie (Aug 10, 2008)

cadet502 said:


> I keep a usb floppy in the drawer, just in case...
> .


+1



> However, a few years ago, the motherboards only supported one floppy, not two, and the 5-1/4" was discarded. I don't even have one in archive storage.


A few years ago? I've been building my own pc's since 2000 & I've never put in a 5-1/4" drive. I would have been ahead of the stores in that respect but I'm thinking it's got to be at least 7 or 8 years since those floppies were standard. Right? Not that it makes any difference -- just saying that time has flown by.


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## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

I keep one as well... you never know!


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## davring (Jan 13, 2007)

I keep one as well, somewhere...


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## JcT21 (Nov 30, 2004)

myself, i havent used a floppy in years. id dump it ... but i do keep a usb floppy among my pile of gadgets... never used it though.


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## smiddy (Apr 5, 2006)

I voted dump it, because, unless you're nostalgic or writing your own OS and need some way to boot, it is pretty worthless. You can boot from most PCs from a thumbdrive and you can get 4 GB for $50-ish. Dump it!


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## GravelChan (Jan 30, 2005)

I just ordered components to build a new computer. The new computer will be lacking both the 3 1/2" and the Zip.........


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## xIsamuTM (Jul 8, 2008)

you jest, i'm the only one voting to keep it!?


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## WERA689 (Oct 15, 2006)

I voted to dump it, but I also have one floating around...just in case...
In any event, it's not installed on my current computer, that I built last spring.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

I have to have one around for working on older machines that still cannot boot from USB. But I also work on a wide variety of stuff 

For probably 99% of users there is no need for a floppy anymore.


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

I refuse to work on machines that are so old that the floppy is their only means of rescue.
If they can't boot via USB or CD-ROM, and they refuse to upgrade to something from this century, then the customer is told "good Luck" and sent on their cheap way.


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## tomkarl (Jan 6, 2009)

cadet502 said:


> I keep a usb floppy in the drawer, just in case...
> 
> .


In case of what? That technology takes a turn backwards 10 years?

Haven't owned a computer with a diskette drive since Apple abandoned them.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

Whew...glad I voted right.....at first I thought this was a Viagra poll...


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## dave29 (Feb 18, 2007)

dump it, whats a floppy:lol: 
(j/k)


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## Stuart Sweet (Jun 19, 2006)

Were we to have this discussion in 1999, I would say keep, but the floppy disk is an obsolete item at this point and your system will work better without it.


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## dhhaines (Nov 18, 2005)

deltafowler said:


> I refuse to work on machines that are so old that the floppy is their only means of rescue.
> If they can't boot via USB or CD-ROM, and they refuse to upgrade to something from this century, then the customer is told "good Luck" and sent on their cheap way.


 Up until last year I had a customer who still had an 8" drive. Remember those?

I made a good sum of money keeping his system up and running.


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## ke3ju (Aug 18, 2006)

cadet502 said:


> I keep a usb floppy in the drawer, just in case...
> 
> .


Me too...


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## xIsamuTM (Jul 8, 2008)

It doesn't matter if it's useful or not anymore, it's nifty old electronics, like a betamax. you keep it because it looks cool. And who knows, maybe one day you or your kids would want to get their Lemming on or their Classic Sierra on, and next thing you know you find yourself building a circa 90's box.

or not.


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## B Newt (Aug 12, 2007)

Im too lazy to pull mine out. I will just leave it in just in case....


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## jodyguercio (Aug 16, 2007)

I don't even know if they make 3 1/2" disks any more. That's how long it's been since I've used one. Dump it.


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

dhhaines said:


> Up until last year I had a customer who still had an 8" drive. Remember those?


Yup. I wouldn't even lay a hand on such a dinosaur, unless they wanted to upgrade and transfer the data to a new system.

Those old boxes run so slowly that they can easily exceed the cost of new equipment with a few hours spent on trying get them patched up so they'll run again.

I simply tell the customer as straightforwardly as possible that they'd be better off putting the money and effort into the upgrade.
If they don't want to do that, I walk away from them, because I can't justify charging them more than the thing's worth, and I'm not going to work on it at 1992 rates.


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## dmurphy (Sep 28, 2006)

Mark Holtz said:


> In about a day or so, I will crack the case to re-hookup my 1TB Seagate drive to back it up to another 1TB drive, install about 4GB of RAM (Vista 64 and Win 7-64 will soar) and I can blow out some dust. And, I'm coming to a decision.... "Save The Floppy" or "Dump The Floppy" on my box?
> 
> Now, mind you, when I went from Apple to PCs in 1989, the 3-1/2" drive was the new thing on the PCs. They held 1.44 MB in comparison to the 1.2MB floppy discs. But, they were more sturdier. Zip Drives, at 100MB, could have overthrown old floppy, but, alas, Zip has long been abandoned.
> 
> ...


When I moved from OS/2 to Mac OS X (yes, OS/2.) back in 2001, I ditched the floppy forever.

It's dead. I definitely don't miss it.


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## ImBack234 (Aug 26, 2008)

God at least 2 of you guys don't like change.:eek2:


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## bidger (Nov 19, 2005)

xIsamuTM said:


> you jest, i'm the only one voting to keep it!?


You're one of two. Care to divulge what compelling reason(s) there are to keep a floppy drive?


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## xIsamuTM (Jul 8, 2008)

/raspberry <t>

It's not that we (or at least I) don't like change, it's that I don't like throwing out mostly working electronics.


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## xIsamuTM (Jul 8, 2008)

bidger said:


> You're one of two. Care to divulge what compelling reason(s) there are to keep a floppy drive?


See post 19


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## bobnielsen (Jun 29, 2006)

I wanted to resurrect some old hardware a few months ago and found a floppy which had the driver. I went through 4 floppy drives before I found one which would read the disk. I don't recall using any of them in years, but I suspect that the floppy itself was marginal.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

I have an 833 MHz PIII with Win98SR2 and all of the patches up until it was no longer supported, available on my network. It's primary job is to hold obsolete drives (floppies and Zip) in case I need them for copying data for someone else. It's even got a 5.25" drive. I last used it about a year ago.

I have a half-dozen USB drives that are bootable with various OSs and utilities, with room for drivers and such, that I use for my stuff and most of the other equipment I work on. It has to be an OLD machine not to support booting from USB, and most aren't worth working on. But unlike others, I *will* work on ancient stuff if the data is worth someone paying my rates. It's amazing that people will keep so much important information on their computers with zero backups and no anti-virus protection while they MySpace all day long...


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## bidger (Nov 19, 2005)

xIsamuTM said:


> See post 19


OK, I can see keeping a Betamax since those tapes aren't playable on anything other than those players, same logic applies to vinyl/turntables, but all floppies are used for is data/file storage and they're limited in that respect. Haven't had a floppy drive installed for years and haven't suffered in that respect. Yeah, there are cool, but outdated technologies, but floppy drives don't cut it from that aspect for me.


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## xIsamuTM (Jul 8, 2008)

My Tale of Woe
(wasn't a scrubs episode)

About a decade past or so, I co-wrote a story with my now ex wife (Shinjuku High School- They Kyoden Chronicles) Lovely tale about the high school lives of 5 anime obsessed kids trying to save the world (think a mix of demon city shinjuku and lucky star only with substance abuse.) Anyhow, they were all on floppies, and after several years and computer upgrades I found myself without any way to view them. The discs have been lost, never ported over to any other media. Now the only record of their existance is a painting she did, and one of my alternate NN's I use online (Kyoden Okamura.)


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## machavez00 (Nov 2, 2006)

Macs haven't had a floppy for years. The first iMac was the start I believe.


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## reber1b (Jun 14, 2007)

I don't know about XP or Vista, but creating an Emergency Repair Disk in W2K Pro requires a 3 1/2" floppy


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

While I don't have a floppy installed any longer...you still need it for situations where you're going to be loading RAID drivers during an XP install.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

Ken S said:


> While I don't have a floppy installed any longer...you still need it for situations where you're going to be loading RAID drivers during an XP install.


Exactly. One of the key things floppies are still needed for. Unless you want to slipstream every time you do a load on a new board/setup.

One of the big improvements with Vista is the installer and the ability to use other media to load alternate drivers during setup.


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

The tribe has spoken. It's time for floppy to go.


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## xIsamuTM (Jul 8, 2008)

Then I bid the a:\ a fond farewell.

just remember to back up all applicable data before you dump it.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

xIsamuTM said:


> Then I bid the a:\ a fond farewell.
> 
> just remember to back up all applicable data before you dump it.


I have not even had a floppy drive in my current or previous PC....I used to in the past, but kept it right next to my 8-track tape player....


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## dhhaines (Nov 18, 2005)

hdtvfan0001 said:


> I have not even had a floppy drive in my current or previous PC....I used to in the past, but kept it right next to my 8-track tape player....


 You had a floppy drive in your car???


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## xIsamuTM (Jul 8, 2008)

/rimshot

why you guys gotta dis the 8 track? Thems was nifty.


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## LarryFlowers (Sep 22, 2006)

dhhaines said:


> You had a floppy drive in your car???





xIsamuTM said:


> /rimshot
> 
> why you guys gotta dis the 8 track? Thems was nifty.


Luxury!

Attached is a picture of the first music system I had in a car...


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## dhhaines (Nov 18, 2005)

LarryFlowers said:


> Luxury!
> 
> Attached is a picture of the first music system I had in a car...


 How'd that work out for you?  Just listened while _parked_ I would guess.


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## xIsamuTM (Jul 8, 2008)

wow I am young...


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## wakajawaka (Sep 27, 2006)

Well, here at work I have come across some extremely valuable information that was filed away in a cabinet on, you guessed it, a 3.5" floppy. It saved me about a months worth of work. I still have a 3.5" on my work computer and on an old home computer. But still, yeah DUMP IT.


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## kfcrosby (Dec 17, 2006)

Ken S said:


> While I don't have a floppy installed any longer...you still need it for situations where you're going to be loading RAID drivers during an XP install.


+2

As long as WinXP is still a viable option, we're stuck with having one of these antiques around. I am glad to see the newer hardware giving options for something other than the good ole a:\


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## xIsamuTM (Jul 8, 2008)

then why do we still call the hdd c:\? shouldn't get renamed as the a:\?


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## dhhaines (Nov 18, 2005)

xIsamuTM said:


> then why do we still call the hdd c:\? shouldn't get renamed as the a:\?


 Then where would people like you who want to keep them, put them?


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## brant (Jul 6, 2008)

i've used my floppy maybe twice in the last year; and both times was to boot from disk due to repair my system.

it was worth having then.


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## Draconis (Mar 16, 2007)

cadet502 said:


> I keep a usb floppy in the drawer, just in case...


Ditto, and I have not used it in over a year.

Besides, I have a boot CD with far more disaster recovery tools on it than what you could ever fit on a floppy.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

xIsamuTM said:


> then why do we still call the hdd c:\? shouldn't get renamed as the a:\?


Because many programs default and look for the C drive as the OS drive. You can install your OS to whatever drive you like, it just usually ends up causing headaches down the line.

Plus its just how it is. It would be confusing to change it now.


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## dmurphy (Sep 28, 2006)

xIsamuTM said:


> then why do we still call the hdd c:\? shouldn't get renamed as the a:\?


The better question to ask is ... why is the OS so inflexible as to require each drive to have a "letter"?

That's so "70s" - it's ridiculous ...


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## houskamp (Sep 14, 2006)

I keep them in place "just in case".. I wouldn't go out of my way to add one to a new machine tho..
I have a few machines with floppies in them yet so I can always read one and burn to CD if needed..


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## kfcrosby (Dec 17, 2006)

Grentz said:


> Because many programs default and look for the C drive as the OS drive. You can install your OS to whatever drive you like, it just usually ends up causing headaches down the line.


Actually no. Windows since NT has been capable of installing to any drive you specify, c:\ and higher. Once done and the registry written, the programs will follow the installation into *:\Program Files. I routinely do this for my clients because the Malware scriptwriters inherently write their code to attack the default c:\ installations. Doesn't eliminate the problem, but it does help.



dmurphy said:


> The better question to ask is ... why is the OS so inflexible as to require each drive to have a "letter"?
> 
> That's so "70s" - it's ridiculous ...


I couldn't agree more! 
The *nix file systems are much more efficient, especially in larger installs when you run out of drive letters for networked drives :?


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## CoriBright (May 30, 2002)

Dump it. Should you find in the rare occasion you actually need one, get a USB floppy drive. They're great, and can be shared around all the PCs in the household.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

dmurphy said:


> The better question to ask is ... why is the OS so inflexible as to require each drive to have a "letter"?
> 
> That's so "70s" - it's ridiculous ...


It's because the OS that Windows is originally based on (CP/M), used drive letters.

For those who don't know:

CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers) was written by Gary Kildall of Digital Research. It was the most popular OS for small computers in the 70's.

QDOS, ("Quick and Dirty Operating System") was more or less a clone of CP/M designed for the Intel 8086, written by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products.

Bill Gates wanted to license his company's (Microsoft's) programming languages to IBM for their new PC, but IBM was more concerned about an operating system. They originally wanted to license CP/M, but Gary Kildall was an academic, not a businessman, and his meetings with IBM didn't go well. So, Gates went to Paterson and bought QDOS from him for $50,000, cleaned it up a bit, and called it MS-DOS (or PC-DOS, for the version licensed to IBM).

And we've had drive letters ever since. And since no one is willing to forgo BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY, we're stuck with them, even though the NT-based OSs have no real need for them.


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