25 replies to this topic

[NickC]

What happened to all the floppy drives on the computers? I went to circuit city the other night, and I saw that none of the computers shown on display had a floppy drive. I have so many files on my old floppy disks that i want to revive such as old pictures, etc. Is there a way to do that?

[Charles]

You need to buy an external floppy drive. They are pretty cheap and all you have to do is plug it into a USB port.

[z2z007]

I would get those files off the floppy disks. They don't have a long storage life.

[azntechguy]

I sympathize with you, I'm a regular floppy disk user (though very recently, I finally got myself a USB drive) and it sucks to see that most computers don't have floppy drives now.

As Charles suggested, either get yourself an external floppy drive, or if you're like me, then get an internal floppy drive (buy one, get one from a friend or take one from a room full of computer parts) and stick it inside the computer.

Z2Z is right as well, Floppy is a magnet based, so it's quite prone to data corruption and whatnot. Sometimes, the floppy just goes bad by itself (I've had that happening to me and I lost several documents that way)

[NickC]

Floppy Disks were a big hit like 4 years ago, and people havent even started getting acquainted with it then the flash drives came out and that killed everything.

[z2z007]

4 years ago? Are you kidding me? They have been around since 1969.

[Charles]

The real floppy disks that actually flopped.

[djharkavy]

I have used the 8" floppies, the 5 1/4" floppies and the 3 1/2 inch floppies. I then went to zip disks, then RW-CDs and now flash drives.

Portable media gets smaller, safer, better and cheaper.

[katinka]

NickC, on Feb 18 2007, 08:27 PM, said:

Floppy Disks were a big hit like 4 years ago, and people havent even started getting acquainted with it then the flash drives came out and that killed everything.

What Z said. I had a flash drive 4 years ago.

[NickC]

z2z007, on Feb 18 2007, 09:16 PM, said:

4 years ago? Are you kidding me? They have been around since 1969.

Oh really? I didnt know that because i was exposed to the floppy disk system in 5th grade. Sorry.

[jj2]

I stop using floppy in six grade, when my completed science fair project got deleted when my floppy disk became corrupted. Flash drives are much better replacement, to both floppy and CD-RWs. Floppy have small storages, and are easily damaged, while CD-RW have a larger capacitiy, but they get scratch easily, and are kind of big to carry in the pocket. Flash Drives are more portable, have more storage and safer.

[Transparent Reality]

Don't bother with an internal floppy. It's a waste of time to install, and you only need it to pull files. I'm glad to see that floppies have died off (unfortunately, winxp still needs them for RAID drivers and ACR).

For fun though, you could RAID a bunch of external floppy drives. It'd serve you little purpose, but it's pretty fun to hear them whir.

[naharissya]

Is it strange that I never use floppy's, CD-RWs or flash drives? I'm probably the only one in the world who just saves stuff on the computer.

[esong27]

I only just started to use flash drives. The thing is that saving stuff on your computer is okay if it's guaranteed your computer will never be mean to you. But we know how 100% dependable our machines are.... they aren't.

Sometimes I'm too lazy to crawl under my desk to stick the flash drive into the back of the machine, so I just email myself so I have things saved there too.

[djharkavy]

esong27, on Feb 19 2007, 08:43 PM, said:

Sometimes I'm too lazy to crawl under my desk to stick the flash drive into the back of the machine, so I just email myself so I have things saved there too.

Get yourself a 3' USB extender. About $2-3, and it means that you don't have to dig under the machine.

[tycoonboy388]

Or you can get yourself a USB hub, they cost around $20, and it expands one USB port into 4. The hub can sit on your desk, so you won't have a problem going behind your desktop to plug in a flash drive. It's really convenient if you have several devices that need to use your USB ports, seeing as now everything that connects to your computer uses USB. If you're in the market for a new desktop, nearly all desktops now come with USB ports on the front.

[NickC]

djharkavy, on Feb 19 2007, 08:57 PM, said:

Get yourself a 3' USB extender. About $2-3, and it means that you don't have to dig under the machine.

Or just switch from using a desktop computer to a laptop. More portable and easier to stick stuff where ever you desire.(that sounded so wrong )

WOW sadly i just realized that it takes about 500 floppy disks to equal the amount of memory in a 512 MB flash drive.
That would be ALOT of floppys you need to carry around!

Also I got the external floppy drive and it was about 60 dollars or a little more plus tax. It works great, but the problem is that most of my disks are really old and some files are corrupt and some just dont exist anymore. I'm surprised staples still sell floppys, and the prices has gone down significantly too.

[tycoonboy388]

Most computers in use still have floppy drives, when that changes, you'll see floppy disks and drives drop off the face of the earth, just like Betamax.

[Transparent Reality]

Well, betamax never really took off in the first place, so I wouldn't really compare it with the inevitable death of floppies.

As for esong's crawling-under-the-desk problem, I'd recommend just moving the computer on top of your desk if you have the room. It's free, and will probably decrease the amount of dust in your case (the reason I absolutely refuse to place my computer on the floor). USB extenders are great though.

[jj2]

NickC, on Feb 19 2007, 11:49 PM, said:

Or just switch from using a desktop computer to a laptop. More portable and easier to stick stuff where ever you desire.(that sounded so wrong )

WOW sadly i just realized that it takes about 500 floppy disks to equal the amount of memory in a 512 MB flash drive.
That would be ALOT of floppys you need to carry around!

Techinically floopy drives are around 3MB each x 500 = 1.5 GB. So thats more than a 512 MB Flash Drives. However the low capacity of each individual floopy disks make them useless anyway.