byUsers Forums
for Users - by Users
You are not logged in.
Announcement
Thank-you.
#1 26-04-2010 15:59:06
- Silkie341
- Moderator
- From: England
- Registered: 28-10-2001
- Posts: 10475
- Karma: Police
RIP the floppy disk
I thought it died years ago but now Sony say they are quitting making them but it leaves one question that bothers me open. How do we do BIOS updates and install RAID drivers which still seem to need floppy drive access? Will they finally add USB media access or has this actually already happened?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/s … -Sony.html
Give me coffee and no one needs to get hurt! Well not physically anyway! "Nothing in this world worth having comes easy" Bob Kelso
Offline
#2 26-04-2010 21:58:03
Re: RIP the floppy disk
Silkie341 wrote:
Will they finally add USB media access or has this actually already happened?
They have for hard disk controller drivers in Windows 7 and some motherboards allow you to update the BIOS from within Windows 
Proxy Info
UK Hardware News & Reviews
"When you own your own business you only have to work half a day. You can do anything you want with the other twelve hours."
Offline
#3 26-04-2010 22:54:59
- Silkie341
- Moderator
- From: England
- Registered: 28-10-2001
- Posts: 10475
- Karma: Police
Re: RIP the floppy disk
Which is fine unless you need the BIOS update to get the Windows install working in the 1st place as I've encountered in the past. I'll hang on to remaining drives for the time being even if just for the initial setup until an OS that's been capable of booting into setup from optical media actually makes the jump to allowing you to install drivers from CD during the initial install.
TBH I imagine if there were still any demand some Chinese company would step in and manufacture drives which they may already be doing for Sony.
Give me coffee and no one needs to get hurt! Well not physically anyway! "Nothing in this world worth having comes easy" Bob Kelso
Offline
#4 27-04-2010 06:39:12
- jerryh
- Elite Member
- From: Medway, Kent
- Registered: 30-03-2001
- Posts: 1188
- Karma: 35
Re: RIP the floppy disk
When was the last time you bought floppies? 
Silkie341 wrote:
How do we do BIOS updates and install RAID drivers which still seem to need floppy drive access?
There are plenty of alternatives.
USB boot on most recent PC's
Burn own bootable CD
Use Live CD
As a last resort use create a dos hard drive on another PC.
update the BIOS from within Windows
Despite the purists complaining, "Oh you must update the Bios from Dos you know!" if your windoze is stable then its probably as reliable as a floppy update.
Anyway if your like me and play around with old machines you will have a couple of spare drives and boxes of floppies already.
Maybe this will spur the industry to produce a better standard for booting from USB.
About time the floppy was killed off.
Oh No not again!!
Offline
#5 27-04-2010 07:44:24
- Silkie341
- Moderator
- From: England
- Registered: 28-10-2001
- Posts: 10475
- Karma: Police
Re: RIP the floppy disk
If they implement the changes but for older OS/PC installs I still need to insert that driver floppy for the RAID controller. As for BIOS I have a system on the bench now that needs an update to get it to remain stable during install and a few seconds of FDD access is less fuss than making CD's. If there was an option to read USB pen drives as FDD just for this purpose then that would be the simplest solution.
Give me coffee and no one needs to get hurt! Well not physically anyway! "Nothing in this world worth having comes easy" Bob Kelso
Offline