Building PC, to floppy or not to floppy?

"Matt" wrote in message
news:OICSa.94044$OZ2.20331@rwcrnsc54...

"Matt" wrote in message
et...
It's possible to build a PC without a floppy that is internal. Most
motherboards today support USB floppy. Thats what I use. I got Teac USB
floppy. As for PS/2 keyboard and mouse - these are all emulated through
the
USB ports. You no longer need PS/2 ports. And you don't need serial
ports
either as USB takes care of that. There are USB drivers for DOS that let
you
take advantage of a mouse and keyboard or other USB devices. I try to
avoid
DOS as much as possible. Crossing my fingers I haven't used it in the
last
6
months. The onlything I need DOS is for Symantec Ghost 2003 which by the
way
supports USB and firewire now. Do I use a PS/2 keyboard, mouse or serial
devices anymore? NOPE! All gone. Never had a problem. Although I keep
my
USB floppy around in a bag somewhere. And it works just like an internal
floppy to boot! My .02


BTW. For a true USB solution - use a flash card reader and boot from it!
Thats what I do most of the time. The 1.44MB size of a floppy is not
important when booting with a CompactFlash card. As a matter of fact my
boot
CF card is 256MB! Do you need a floppy nowadays? No.


There are quite a few reasons that pop into my mind to have a floppy drive
installed, however, the choice is yours.
If you can afford the $15 put one in.

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 01:21:06 GMT, jaeger wrote:

In article ,
says...
I'm considering not putting a floppy drive in my new computer. I have a LAN
and the other computers have floppies. Anyone see a reason why I should
include one? Thanks.
-- Scott

I haven't used one in almost 4 years, there is nothing you need it for.


Wrong. There are situations where you might need it. I still have to
use mine occasionally.

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 04:03:42 GMT, jaeger wrote:

Wrong. There are situations where you might need it.

Name one.

Adding 3rd party hard disk drivers or raid drivers during setup
System recovery using partition magic, nortons, others.

"jaeger" wrote in message
et...
In article ,
says...

Adding 3rd party hard disk drivers or raid drivers during setup

You can add the drivers to a custom WinXP CD. In fact, this is the
smart way to do it since you can add all your drivers, plus you can set
the switches so that you don't have to babysit the install.

System recovery using partition magic, nortons, others.

Partition Magic will recover from the install CD. Ghost is crap unless
you do enterprise deployment, but the image disc itself is bootable.


I have PM, Drive Image, Ghost etc on a bootable cd-rom.

But I have a client who sends me her a/cs and payroll on a floppy disk.
--
Doug Ramage

"jaeger" wrote in message
et...
In article ,
says...

Copying a paper (five minutes from the deadline) from my laptop to a
school
computer, so I can print it out.

Did I miss the part where the original poster was building a laptop?

sarcasmYes, you did./sarcasm Did I say he was building a laptop? I was
citing an example for a situation in which a floppy drive is useful. It's a
good fallback low-tech solution for certain data transfer situations.

--
NoRemorse
"Expect me when you see me."

"jaeger" wrote in message
et...
In article xBMSa.111849$H17.34965@sccrnsc02,
says...

sarcasmYes, you did./sarcasm Did I say he was building a laptop? I
was
citing an example for a situation in which a floppy drive is useful.
It's a
good fallback low-tech solution for certain data transfer situations.

Laptops are different, and not really relevant here. For a laptop that
interfaces with a variety of systems then yes, possibly, a floppy is
useful. But not on a desktop.

Thats crap, he's on about the fact the college Desktop only had a floppy
drive free so he could transfer his data..

Thats the relevance..

Dave

"jaeger" wrote in message
t...
In article ,
says...

Wrong. There are situations where you might need it.

Name one.

It can be embarrasing to save your MYOB stuff to a USB device then have your
accountant tell you he can`t use it and in the meantime you are paying in
excess of a hundred bucks an hour for his services. Kind of makes the floppy
drive look good.

"jaeger" wrote in message
et...
In article xBMSa.111849$H17.34965@sccrnsc02,
says...

sarcasmYes, you did./sarcasm Did I say he was building a laptop? I
was
citing an example for a situation in which a floppy drive is useful.
It's a
good fallback low-tech solution for certain data transfer situations.

Laptops are different, and not really relevant here. For a laptop that
interfaces with a variety of systems then yes, possibly, a floppy is
useful. But not on a desktop.

Obviously you don`t own a lappy. You don`t know what you are missing. Then
again, if you don`t leave the house you wouldn`t need a lappy.

wrote:
I'm considering not putting a floppy drive in my new computer. I have a
LAN and the other computers have floppies. Anyone see a reason why I
should include one? Thanks.
-- Scott

Floppies are dirt cheap and if you don't install it you will need it, sure
as hell.

--
Asus A7N8X deluxe rev. 2.0
AMD XP 3200+, 400fsb
Corsair XMS PC 3500, 512 meg x 2, dual channel mode
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, 256 meg DDR

On Sun, 20 Jul 2003 18:34:37 GMT, "Scott"
wrote:

I'm considering not putting a floppy drive in my new computer. I have a LAN
and the other computers have floppies. Anyone see a reason why I should
include one? Thanks.
-- Scott

If you're going to run Windows XP, and expect to be able to make an
ASR (automated System Recovery) file set, you WILL need a floppy
drive, as that is where the data for the file set is stored. I bought
my last Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop without a floppy drive, figuring I'd
use a USB jump drive. However, there is no way to complete an ASR set
without a floppy. Fortunately, I found a modular floppy for my 8200
on eBay for $19.99 (rather than the $89 that Dell wanted!).

Cheers