floppy drives

[F1shF4t]

Havent used them for ages, infact i dont have a single floppy disk left. Have one floppy drive lying around, dont know if it still even works lol
The darn evil data corupting things should have died long ago

 

[LOUISSSSS]

have one spare in the closet. 0 in the pc. havn't used in 2 years.
what are floppys still used for?

 

[saymyname]

Haven't used one in almost 7 years.

It's more convenient to flash the bios with one but can be done in other ways. Floppies are simply too slow and I always found the disks to be corrupted when I needed them most. Even in their hayday I would use make two floppies to back everything up in case one died.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: tallman45

So you take out the windows install CD during install (at the F6 prompt) and put in the SATA driver CD, that never worked in the past. Is that how you do it ?[/quote]

That should work - you might also use a second optical drive or a flash memory drive. And they can be slipstreamed into the XP CD - or you can use an external floppy. Or, you can pre-load them into a drivers partition on the HDD. BTW - if you haven't installed the SATA drivers first, how are you accessing the SATA HDD for the installation?

If the drive you are installing to is not SATA, then it can wait until after XP is installed.

 

[tallman45]

Originally posted by: corkyg

Originally posted by: tallman45

So you take out the windows install CD during install (at the F6 prompt) and put in the SATA driver CD, that never worked in the past. Is that how you do it ?

That should work - you might also use a second optical drive or a flash memory drive. And they can be slipstreamed into the XP CD - or you can use an external floppy. Or, you can pre-load them into a drivers partition on the HDD. BTW - if you haven't installed the SATA drivers first, how are you accessing the SATA HDD for the installation?

If the drive you are installing to is not SATA, then it can wait until after XP is installed.



[/quote]


It does not work if you take out the Windows install cd, with all the other things that "could' work suggest , I would just say stay with the floppy method

 

[corkyg]

And what will you do with no floppy drive?

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: corkyg

Originally posted by: tallman45

So you take out the windows install CD during install (at the F6 prompt) and put in the SATA driver CD, that never worked in the past. Is that how you do it ?

That should work - you might also use a second optical drive or a flash memory drive. And they can be slipstreamed into the XP CD - or you can use an external floppy. Or, you can pre-load them into a drivers partition on the HDD. BTW - if you haven't installed the SATA drivers first, how are you accessing the SATA HDD for the installation?

If the drive you are installing to is not SATA, then it can wait until after XP is installed.
[/quote]

Not quite.

If it's unsupported by Windows (which basically means SATA RAID or a newer SCSI RAID controllers), you must do one of two things:

1. Have a floppy disk with the drivers handy
2. Integrate the drivers into your image

For most people, a floppy is still pretty handy. For the AT crowd, I'd think that would be even more the case, as many here will roll their own machines and their own installations.

I use RIS to build all of my machines (via a PXE boot over the network), so for me I resolve the issue by integrating the drivers into the RIS image. Most people don't have that luxury, and many thus are stuck with floppies.

nlite is a good slipstreaming solution, if that's a concern for anyone.

 

[corkyg]

How about a second CD/DVD drive and pointing to it?

 

[vanderStoep]

I dumped my floppydrive three years ago. If you use your PC by yourself, no need for it. Internet, USB sticks.
However, I have found that other people expect to be able to use a floppydisc on your PC.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: corkyg
How about a second CD/DVD drive and pointing to it?

Won't work. The F6 prompt is very specific. Try it sometime when you boot from your XP CD.

 

[Sforsyth]

I haven't used a floopy drive in about 4 years, since XP and I think when Windows 98 Boot CD came along.

 

[eplebnista]

I still use one and still put one in all of the systems I have built/upgraded over the last few years.

 

[Philippine Mango]

Until porn stops arriving on floppy disk, there will always be a use for a floppy.


Oh and I guess the occasional SATA controller driver install as well, if you're into that sort of thing, anyways...

 

[swinger222]

They're only about $5, so why not? Pick one up out of an old pc or something. Better to have one than not.