Silly computer ordering question

Posted by: Dignan

Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 00:27

So I'm putting a couple machines together for some people, and I've put a lot of thought and time into which components to buy, put them in nice spreadsheets to show them, catered to the types of users they are, and ended up with some good looking machines. There's one case in which I have no idea what to get for the component I'm looking for. I want to get it for their sakes, and I want it to be a decent one, not simply the cheapest I can find, unless it doesn't make a difference.

So, used any good floppy drives lately?
Posted by: genixia

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 00:31

No.
Posted by: _hardcore_

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 01:38

Skip the floppy, and buy a flash card reader that fits into the 5 1/4" slot instead, and make sure it's able to read the various types af flashcard. Throw in a USB flashcard keyring and you/they'll never look back.

\\Kaare
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 01:44

Yeah I know. If it were up to me, I'd leave it out. My girlfriend was very concerned about the lack of a floppy in her shuttle, because she carts files to and from the library on floppies, but she forgot about it, and she hasn't mentioned it since

But these folks want them, so I want to oblige. I mean, they want to put zip drives and a DVD burner into the same system. I think I talked them out of the zip drives, though.
Posted by: _hardcore_

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 01:52

Yeah I know. If it were up to me, I'd leave it out. My girlfriend was very concerned about the lack of a floppy in her shuttle, because she carts files to and from the library on floppies, but she forgot about it, and she hasn't mentioned it since

But these folks want them, so I want to oblige. I mean, they want to put zip drives and a DVD burner into the same system. I think I talked them out of the zip drives, though.


I stopped using anything else than portables 5 or 6 years ago, never used a floopy since IBM put out their 8MB flash key-ring. On the last 2/3 portables i've had, i havn't even got a floppydrive to them.

\\Kaare
Posted by: pca

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 04:18

If you can, get a mitsumi FD. I have used/sold hundreds of floppy drives over the years (yes I know they're slow, old, and small, but at times they're the only way) and the mitsumi drives seem to have the best reliability/compatibility. The suppliers I use say the same thing.

That said, the Sony drives are fairly reasonable nowadays, and most places only seem to stock them now. They're also dirt-cheap, and available in black if you want.

pca
Posted by: Cybjorg

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 07:16

I used a floppy drive this last week to flash the BIOS on my father-in-law's old Dell computer. Other than that, I haven't used one in years.

EDIT: Or is it father's-in-law? Oi, this crazy English!
Posted by: lopan

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 07:23

Skip the floppy, and buy a flash card reader that fits into the 5 1/4" slot instead, and make sure it's able to read the various types af flashcard. Throw in a USB flashcard keyring and you/they'll never look back.

I'm a big supporter of skipping floppies too, however have you ever tried to load XP onto a SATA raid? Funny thing about that, XP has NO options to load 3rd party drivers from anything other then floppy. So your thinking just get a USB floppy, and maybe theres a way around it but even after disabling floppy in bios it still comes up as b: not a: which has to be used by XP.... theres no way around it and it's my biggest peeve with microsoft right now...
Posted by: JBjorgen

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 08:25

2nd on the Mitsumi. Great floppy drives. Good cheapy keyboards too.
Posted by: BartDG

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 09:21

Skip the floppy drives and buy ONE external one. (they are pretty cheap and connect through USB)
That way, compatibility is assured when you need it, and you don't have it wasting space in your new systems.
Posted by: JBjorgen

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 10:13

A lot of BIOS's won't boot off of a USB floppy. Especially older ones.
Posted by: tman

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 10:53

On the off chance that you can find somebody selling a LS-120 drive, don't buy it. I've got a couple of them and they're all terrible for reliability. It still works as a floppy drive but they can't read the special 120MB disks anymore. All kind of partially died after about 2 years.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 10:55

And they're all IDE-based anyway, aren't they? There's some sort of trickery to make the computer think that it's a floppy drive.
Posted by: Roger

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 10:56

Especially older ones.

But he's building new PCs. This isn't a problem.
Posted by: tman

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 10:59

Yeah. They're connected via an IDE interface. You need support for them in the BIOS to boot off it. Windows has supported it for years now.
Posted by: Cybjorg

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 11:00

I remember when I thought LS-120 drives were going to be the next big thing. Heh.
Posted by: tman

Re: Silly computer ordering question - 25/02/2004 11:06

Yep. Same here. That's why I've got 3 of them I've only got 5 LS-120 disks though