Buy your floppy disks now, while stocks last!

[John Gray]

Sony to stop making floppy disks, and they're the last manufacturer to do this...

[HansV]

What would I do with them? My PC doesn't have a floppy disk drive...

[StuartR]

I still have an external USB floppy disk drive, but I haven't used it for nearly a year.

[HansV]

My previous PC did have a floppy drive, but I think the last time I used it was in 2005 or so, when I downloaded a BIOS upgrade that insisted on being installed from a floppy disk.

[John Gray]

In Windows Server 2003 and before, an Automated System Recovery (ASR) backup required its control file to be written to a diskette.

And it's not that long since 'unusual disk drivers' had to be loaded from diskette during an install of Windows...

I still find diskettes useful for saving the £10-£15 cost to repartition new Dell Optiplexes (using Partition Magic, very old version) - that being what Dell charges you if you don't want the whole disk as a single partition. Although this won't be practical in the very near future.

[StuartR]

Acronis Disk Director boots quite happily from a CD - the current version only costs £24 and that would be a one off payment.

[stuck]

This is a timely warning for those of us dinosaurs with a Win 98 box sitting on the floor under the desk that one day we're going to get round to reinstalling and generally tweaking because we're sad like that...

Ken

[DaveA]

This is a timely warning for those of us dinosaurs with a Win 98 box sitting on the floor under the desk that one day we're going to get round to reinstalling and generally tweaking because we're sad like that...

Ken

Don't worry, I have a big pile of them that you can have, all you have to do is come over and pick them up

[aardvark]

If anyone is interested in a Iomega Zip drive with 100mb and 250mb disks. Let me know. I would love to see them recycled somewhere.

[Skitterbug]

If anyone is interested in a Iomega Zip drive with 100mb and 250mb disks. Let me know. I would love to see them recycled somewhere.

I have the Zip drive as well and have not used it in ages.......I thought it was a great way to save data - at the time!

John: If I have to use a floppy disk, I have enough of them around to supply my needs so the manufacturer doesn't need to worry about me!

Perhaps a project would be building a computer with all the various ways to save data implemented in the design? I've enough parts around to do it. Some day when I have the time perhaps.

[Argus]

I bought my latest (last?) set of floppies in 2001.

I moved to CD-ROM around the time I bought Windows 95 (as many of you remember, you could get it in a "floppy version" or a CD version, but W95 with Plus! on floppies didn't look that tempting (I don't know if Plus! was released on floppies, maybe not, perhaps one of the reasons I went for the CD, besides, the CD version had extra "fun stuff" ). I have a version of OS/2, never used, with one gazillion floppies; maybe I can use them if needed, on the other hand, as Dave and Skitterbug said; there are piles of floppies in boxes and everywhere.

BTW, when I read the news the other day, I went looking for something on some floppies (that was probably the first time since 2006 I touched one). In the early 90s I sometimes used, as many did, PKZip to span archives over several floppies (gee, how important those tools were... or one could try creating DMF floppies... In those days WinZip didn't support spanned archives.). The files happened to be in such archive, and I wondered if I had to install some archive (zip) software to unzip the archive (I don't have a dedicated zip program). In this case the OS was Windows XP, and as we all know it has native support for zip files, but I had completely forgot that it could deal with spanned archives. (At the time there were also other tools that could split files in almost any size.) Ah well, 10 years till the next time, by that time I will not even remember what a spanned archive is.

The memories of swapping a floppy back and forth to do a disk copy aren't that merry either. When did that change? DOS 5, DOS 6? Not to mention the wobbly 8 inch floppies; as large as a netbook.

Another link related to floppies, also Raymond Chen, he tells about an almost-feature: Windows 95 almost had floppy insertion detection but the training cost was prohibitive

[viking33]

I bought my latest (last?) set of floppies in 2001.

I moved to CD-ROM around the time I bought Windows 95 (as many of you remember, you could get it in a "floppy version" or a CD version, but W95 with Plus! on floppies didn't look that tempting (I don't know if Plus! was released on floppies, maybe not, perhaps one of the reasons I went for the CD, besides, the CD version had extra "fun stuff" ). I have a version of OS/2, never used, with one gazillion floppies; maybe I can use them if needed, on the other hand, as Dave and Skitterbug said; there are piles of floppies in boxes and everywhere.

BTW, when I read the news the other day, I went looking for something on some floppies (that was probably the first time since 2006 I touched one). In the early 90s I sometimes used, as many did, PKZip to span archives over several floppies (gee, how important those tools were... or one could try creating DMF floppies... In those days WinZip didn't support spanned archives.). The files happened to be in such archive, and I wondered if I had to install some archive (zip) software to unzip the archive (I don't have a dedicated zip program). In this case the OS was Windows XP, and as we all know it has native support for zip files, but I had completely forgot that it could deal with spanned archives. (At the time there were also other tools that could split files in almost any size.) Ah well, 10 years till the next time, by that time I will not even remember what a spanned archive is.

The memories of swapping a floppy back and forth to do a disk copy aren't that merry either. When did that change? DOS 5, DOS 6? Not to mention the wobbly 8 inch floppies; as large as a netbook.

Another link related to floppies, also Raymond Chen, he tells about an almost-feature: Windows 95 almost had floppy insertion detection but the training cost was prohibitive

Hey Argus!
Good to see you back! After reading your post, I went back into two floppy disk storage file drawers that I have collecting dust on my book shelves. I still have floppy copies of DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 in there. MANY disks! I used to use them to "verify" to MS that I could use upgrade versions of the NEWER Windows OS.
I still insist on having a floppy drive in all of my machines, if for nothing but nostalgia.

[BobH]

Gee! I better get crackin'!

Just a few weeks ago, I came across a deal on a 3.5" floppy drive that had card readers built in. As I haven't had a floppy drive installed in some time, I don't think I have anything that would require it (though I probably have 400-500 floppy disks about. But, those card readers have come in handy. No more digging through junk drawers to find the USB card readers when I want to take some pics off the cameras.

Does anyone have a 5.25" disk drive that will work with WinXP on a P4 machine? I've still got several hundred of those old diskettes around - including a couple that had data on them that I'd like to retrieve. I've also got a set of 5.25" diskettes containing the original, non-graphical version of Windows.

[DaveA]

I just gave my last 5 1/4 drive to the Junk collector. I have a guy that takes spare parts and puts to gether machines and gives them to seniors who do not have a machine. A very good way of getting rid of those old spare parts.

[Leif]

A very good way of getting rid of those old spare parts.

I hope that you are not suggesting 'seniors' are 'old spare parts' to be got rid of

[MickeyMouse]

I just gave my last 5 1/4 drive to the Junk collector. I have a guy that takes spare parts and puts to gether machines and gives them to seniors who do not have a machine. A very good way of getting rid of those old spare parts.

I do the same thing for the seniors in my neighborhood and in the various church organizations that I am either part of or have contact with. I have one lady that keeps a floppy disk with her at all times that has pictures of all her immediate family. I have been trying to convince her to switch to a thumb drive but she doesn't trust them.

[MickeyMouse]

A very good way of getting rid of those old spare parts.

I hope that you are not suggesting 'seniors' are 'old spare parts' to be got rid of

Kind of reminds me of the "Bring Out Your Dead" Monty Python routine.

And now for something completely different....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs

[BobH]

A very good way of getting rid of those old spare parts.

I hope that you are not suggesting 'seniors' are 'old spare parts' to be got rid of

Hey! I represent that remark. I'm a '42 model you see, but I assembled and ran my first program in '67. Had to know how to punch cards in those days and had to have a card reader on your computer.

(Yes! I've still got some punch card stock, too!)

[Jezza]

How funny that this has thread has come about now, I was clearing out my locker at work on Monday and I found a little black floppy disk wallet in there, it contained:

1) Windows 3.1 system disk
2) Win 95 Boot up disk
3) Win 98 Boot up disk
4) 3 x DOS 6.22 disks

Those disks got me (and my clients) out of a lot of trouble in the past and were the bed rock of my introduction to IT as a rooky on a technical team. I showed them to one of our Junior Desktop Support lads and he still couldn't get his head around 1.44 Mb. It stilll makes me giggle that this generation of support guys are a factor of 1,024 further up the scale from me and my Ipod Shuffle is 1/10 the physical size of a floppy but has 4,194,304 the capacity to store data.

[Bowlie]

Actually about 40 of them, thanks to Auntie ....