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#332444 - 27/04/2010 00:56 3.5 inch floppy disk death
msaeger
carpal tunnel

Registered: 23/09/2000
Posts: 3608
Loc: Minnetonka, MN
So when is the last time anyone has used a 3.5 inch floppy for it's intended or unintended purpose ?

I can't remember exactly the date but less than a year ago I had to use one to install windows XP. My copy is too old to have SATA drivers so I had to use one during the install process so I could install XP onto a SATA drive. It was hard to believe I couldn't use a USB drive but I guess XP is that old.

I remember having to dig through the box of old computer stuff I should throw away and find a disk that had some obsolete program on it and the floppy drive. Had to try a couple disks to find a working one.
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#332445 - 27/04/2010 01:14 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: msaeger]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
Originally Posted By: msaeger
It was hard to believe I couldn't use a USB drive but I guess XP is that old.

It's not really that old. (I mean, it is, but …) Floppies were already becoming uncommon when XP was released, in mid-to-late 2001. For example, Apple had stopped shipping computers with floppy drives in 1998. They're usually on the forefront of that sort of thing, but, still, that's three years. Dell stopped shipping floppy drives by default by 2003.

In short, there was no excuse for the XP install system to fail to support USB floppy drives, or other USB mass storage devices.
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#332446 - 27/04/2010 01:32 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: wfaulk]
drakino
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
I can't even remember the last time. I had a home network and file server in 1998, and by then floppies were already pretty useless for moving data around. Only purpose they served back then was as a boot disk to load CD-ROM drivers prior to a Windows 9x install. By the time XP was getting old enough to not have common storage drivers built in, I was already transitioning to OS X.

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#332448 - 27/04/2010 04:56 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: drakino]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
Am I remembering incorrectly, or was memtest86 only available in a floppy-bootable version for a while? If so, that's the last time for me.
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#332450 - 27/04/2010 05:55 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: msaeger]
andy
carpal tunnel

Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
I used one a couple of years ago to update the BIOS on an old PowerEdge server.

I had a shock with that same server a couple of months ago. It liveslived in my garage and the drives started failing at the same time that I was having networking problems. So I rushed out to the garage to try and save some data that I knew wasn't backedup.

When I arrived at the server with my external hard drive, it took me several minutes to understand that it really didn't have a USB port anywhere cry
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#332451 - 27/04/2010 10:52 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: andy]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
About 4-weeks ago. To apply a firmware update to an SSD.

Cheers

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#332452 - 27/04/2010 11:36 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: mlord]
hybrid8
carpal tunnel

Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
I ripped open a floppy two weeks ago to try using the disk material as an IR filter. I retired floppy drives from my Windows systems in 1999 I believe.
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#332453 - 27/04/2010 11:40 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: mlord]
frog51
pooh-bah

Registered: 09/08/2000
Posts: 2091
Loc: Edinburgh, Scotland
One of my Dell servers is about 2 years old. XP SP2 but I still need to use a floppy to update the BIOS...
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#332457 - 27/04/2010 12:40 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: frog51]
Phoenix42
veteran

Registered: 21/03/2002
Posts: 1424
Loc: MA but Irish born
Why not use a bootable USB key for updating the BIOS?

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#332458 - 27/04/2010 12:59 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: Phoenix42]
andy
carpal tunnel

Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
Because many older machines with USB won't boot from USB (even some that are supposed to be able to).
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#332461 - 27/04/2010 13:48 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: hybrid8]
siberia37
old hand

Registered: 09/01/2002
Posts: 702
Loc: Tacoma,WA
Originally Posted By: hybrid8
I ripped open a floppy two weeks ago to try using the disk material as an IR filter. I retired floppy drives from my Windows systems in 1999 I believe.


Unexposed and developed slide film is supposed to work for that as well. Large format slide film would work best- you would have a nice big 4x5 (or 8x10) inch piece you could cut to size.

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#332462 - 27/04/2010 13:55 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: siberia37]
hybrid8
carpal tunnel

Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
Yeah, I know about the film as well. The only thing I had handy were a couple of floppies though, so I thought I'd try them out first. Unfortunately they didn't block the wavelengths and spurious noise I was hoping for. At least in my limited test. I'm actually looking block visible light and some IR, to filter out some noise produced by some CCFL backlights and Plasma screens (for customers).

I've also got some 5.25" floppies around that I haven't touched in over 20 years. I wonder if they'll still read - I'd love to pull some content off them (Commodore 64 format).
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#332463 - 27/04/2010 13:57 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: siberia37]
RobotCaleb
pooh-bah

Registered: 15/01/2002
Posts: 1866
Loc: Austin
I just the other weekend used a floppy for the same purpose. I would have used film, except for the fact that I haven't a clue where to buy some and haven't actually seen any in at least 10 years. As it is, I had to grab a floppy from my wife as I don't have any of those, either. smile

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#332465 - 27/04/2010 14:04 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: RobotCaleb]
andym
carpal tunnel

Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
I used one last week, and will be using it again. It's on a 'very' expensive Agilent spectrum analyser and it's the only way to get screen grabs and other data off it. Unless you want to use the GBIP to parallel converter, which is another exercise in frustration....
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#332466 - 27/04/2010 15:24 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: msaeger]
Robotic
pooh-bah

Registered: 06/04/2005
Posts: 2026
Loc: Seattle transplant
I think these floppy disk tiles would have been more popular 15 years ago.
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#332486 - 27/04/2010 21:22 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: Robotic]
msaeger
carpal tunnel

Registered: 23/09/2000
Posts: 3608
Loc: Minnetonka, MN
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Matt

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#332496 - 28/04/2010 00:42 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: msaeger]
gbeer
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Registered: 17/12/2000
Posts: 2665
Loc: Manteca, California
1 of 15


Attachments
floppy.jpg




Edited by gbeer (28/04/2010 00:43)
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#332505 - 28/04/2010 11:43 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: gbeer]
siberia37
old hand

Registered: 09/01/2002
Posts: 702
Loc: Tacoma,WA
I remember playing the games with 15 disks. Eventually one of the disks would start to go and you would put the bad disk in and just pray as the floppy drive started making horrible seek noises. Then you knew it was all over.

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#332508 - 28/04/2010 13:01 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: siberia37]
Waterman981
old hand

Registered: 14/02/2002
Posts: 804
Loc: Salt Lake City, UT
I use one about monthly. When one of our encrypted laptops has a problem that is one of the tools to get the data back.
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#332511 - 28/04/2010 14:36 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: andy]
Phoenix42
veteran

Registered: 21/03/2002
Posts: 1424
Loc: MA but Irish born
Originally Posted By: andy
Because many older machines with USB won't boot from USB (even some that are supposed to be able to).


Doh! I'd forgotten that.

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#332514 - 28/04/2010 16:55 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: Phoenix42]
Robotic
pooh-bah

Registered: 06/04/2005
Posts: 2026
Loc: Seattle transplant
Originally Posted By: Phoenix42
Originally Posted By: andy
Because many older machines with USB won't boot from USB (even some that are supposed to be able to).


Doh! I'd forgotten that.

I recently noticed that there's a disk-drive-to-usb adapter available for the ABB robot controllers I work with.
I haven't looked to see if anyone makes that sort of thing for a PC.
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#332515 - 28/04/2010 17:02 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: gbeer]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
Originally Posted By: gbeer
1 [Office floppy] of 15

I've still got somewhere a Mac Plus, which can boot MacOS and then run Microsoft Word all from a single 800K floppy.

Peter

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#332520 - 28/04/2010 18:47 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: peter]
siberia37
old hand

Registered: 09/01/2002
Posts: 702
Loc: Tacoma,WA
I can't find it anymore but SysInternals used to have a utility to format a floppy disk to have a NTFS file system. That was a fun little trick. The only problem was you only had 500KB free after the NTFS overhead. Floppy with file permissions and encryption anyone?

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#332522 - 28/04/2010 18:50 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: siberia37]
Taym
carpal tunnel

Registered: 18/06/2001
Posts: 2504
Loc: Roma, Italy
Originally Posted By: siberia37
Floppy with file permissions and encryption anyone?


Yes, a long time ago, just for fun. At that time, decreased capacity was too a high price compared to the benefit of encryption/permissions. In any case, I remember already having some Iomega Zip disks around when NTFS floppies became an option... smile
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#332540 - 28/04/2010 20:27 Re: 3.5 inch floppy disk death [Re: siberia37]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
Originally Posted By: siberia37
I can't find it anymore but SysInternals used to have a utility to format a floppy disk to have a NTFS file system. That was a fun little trick. The only problem was you only had 500KB free after the NTFS overhead. Floppy with file permissions and encryption anyone?

If it is the same utility that I remember then it just wrote a preprepared image to the floppy instead of using the OS routines to actually do the formatting since they would refuse to work on a drive that small. The author of the utility had to do some patching of NT to actually create that image as well.

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