Will Floppy Drive Work Upside Down ?

[J054]

Well, some motherboards only give you floppys others give you cds... but you can still download them and put them on a cd.

[Smoken Joe]

Well, some motherboards only give you floppys others give you cds... but you can still download them and put them on a cd.

 

 

True but it really is less work for most people to just put in the floppy and hit enter. Even better it is usually free because it is salvaged from an older computer. Also they are more likely to work if things are going wrong elsware. I do wish they made the cable smaller though that is a pain keeping it out of the airflow and sight.

[Cythrawl]

I know this is kind of off topic but why even use a floppy drive, especially if your low on space. I have 3 computers without floppy drives, I dont think ill ever buy one again. You can get boot up cds and theres really no use for floppys in todays environment. Burn a cd, use a usb drive etc... IMHO floppys are a waste of money.

 

I dont even have them in my server, use boot up cds if necessary.

 

Because anything that requires an F6 install in Windows XP, X64, 2000, NT4 will not work unless its on a floppy. In fact I think that still true in Vista (Longhorn) as well.

 

Raid Controllers, Scsi Controllers, special Keyboard/input drivers are mostly required for the F6 install.

 

If your server had a high end RAID controller and you wanted to install 2000/2003 server and you didnt have a floppy disk and it NEEDED the F6 Drivers to see the hard drive, you are screwed without a lot of hardware jiggleing or making an integrated install CD.

 

Sometimes its just easier to stick a floppy drive that costs like $5 and be done with it... its not like it drains huge amounts of power from your PSU and its not like they are expensive either.

[Guest thespin]

I apologize for the slow response.

 

Thanks all for your input. I have a Sony MPF920-Z and it doesn't appear to work upside down. If I bring up Windows Explorer and click on the floppy, the light comes on. Say the drive is empty, it will ask for a disk. However, if one is inserted it, it will just sit there with the light on but no reading noises. The light goes off when I cancel the message. If a floppy is already in the drive, the light comes on and I hear the drive open the slide - but after a few seconds I get a message saying "A: is not accessible. The floppy disk controller reported an error that is not recognized by the floppy disk driver." and the light goes off.

 

With Tmod's great CD available, I currently use the floppy only for Ghost backups. However, I can load Ghost from one of the bootable backup DVDs I already created with it. I suppose I will have to replace the floppy if I decide to load RAID or make the effort of installing this one right-side up ...

[Guest thespin]

Well, I decided 'what the heck!' and did the work and reinstalled it right side up. Same result. I guess it just crapped out on me. Que sera, sera ...

 

Thanks all for your input.

[MoJo Risin&#39]

Aahhh, the joys of computing. Keep in mind, you don’t need to mount it in the case to verify if it works. I test new/troubleshoot old drives while connected on the mat in any position I choose, and then mount if successful and retest (HDD’s, floppies & ZIP’s).

 

Once in a very great while, a floppy will go south on me. For the most part, these simple dinosaurs are very dependable. Heck, my old 5 ¼ ” floppy based Commodore 128 still functions. (I keep it in mothballs for posterity and to remind me of what it was like in days passed. It helps to humble me when I get upset by the grief today’s technology sometimes hands me.) Whenever a floppy starts acting up, I remove it and blow it out with air. I think I also have a magic disk laying around somewhere that you pop in to try and clean it. If that doesn’t fix it, I trash and replace it.

 

All of my systems still have a floppy. Besides the reasons stated in other posts, if you have a kid in school or college, sometimes that’s all they can use. My kid was taking a couple computer related classes in college and they wouldn’t let them use a ZIP, CD-RW or flash. Only floppies. (Yay! Pay big bucks for higher edumacation and this is what you get.)

[Kilamon]

Get yourself an external floppy drive like this one. I'm sure there are cheaper versions as well. I have a couple of these lying around my house just in case any of my computers needs a floppy.

[Guest Crusader]

I know this is kind of off topic but why even use a floppy drive, especially if your low on space. I have 3 computers without floppy drives, I dont think ill ever buy one again. You can get boot up cds and theres really no use for floppys in todays environment. Burn a cd, use a usb drive etc... IMHO floppys are a waste of money.

 

I dont even have them in my server, use boot up cds if necessary.

 

Well I for one would never feel comfortable flashing a BIOS from within Windows. If you ask me that's reason enuff if you have the space to add a floppydrive offcourse. Besides, what's the cost ... less than 10 bucks or so.

[Kilamon]

Well I for one would never feel comfortable flashing a BIOS from within Windows. If you ask me that's reason enuff if you have the space to add a floppydrive offcourse. Besides, what's the cost ... less than 10 bucks or so.

You can boot from a CD or a USB drive and do your BIOS flash that way, though. There's no requirement for a floppy, though having one as a backup is pretty handy. I did my original flash from a USB floppy and it worked fine. I was impressed that the DFI board detected the USB floppy and was able to use it from/for the bios.