Alex
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Yes. Nobody uses those anymore. Even CDs are becoming obsolete. USB flash drives are in.
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question229
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yes very obsolete. The new thing is USB flash drives or CD's but CD's are a bit of a pain.
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Littlefibs
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They are becoming less usefull but you still need them for certain tasks. If you want to install windows from scratch on SATA hard drives then you need the scsi drivers from a floppy drive. No other way around it. You also need a floppy if you want to install your hard drives in a raid array. In rare cases where XP won't install normally you can create bootable floppy disks which takes 5 of them. USB or other wouldn't help you there either.
Finally if you want to be sure your data is completely formated by overwriting it with zeros 7 or 8 times then you need a format tool from your hard drive maker. The process needs a floppy as well.
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Alexander R
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well not completely i still use em for very minor job such as formating hard drives but USBs are top
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slowpoke_115
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If you have a SATA hard drive, the only way it will work with Windows is by either remastering the Windows disk which is incredibly tricky or getting out your old floppy drive and putting the drivers on a disk.
Windows are the last people to copntine supporting this archaic format and it seems so obscure when SATA is so new, if you buy a brand new drive youll need to use a drive developed in 1979, so odd. Vista has stopped supporting floppy drives, but people still use them a bit. Not quite dead in my opinion, give em another year and they'll be long gonbe and hopefully ms will have some alternatives for us SATA disk owners.
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Dyvn
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They are, even computer fabricators such as Dell no longer include floppy drives in their computers, and it's been that way for a while now. As it's been said above, even the Compact Disc (CD) is becoming obsolete and USB flash drives are becoming very wide spread for due to the memory sizes available, size of the single unit and portability. :)
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am
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Pretty much, I don't know anyone who uses them anymore. Some people still use cds but most people are using flash drives which can store much more info in a more compact format.
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Cirric
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Hi. You mean the 8" ones? I might still have a few kicking around.
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Bigmike
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Alex is retarded.......floppy drives are used alot more than youknow......to install drivers for dvd roms.....cd roms..... ethernet networks access cards..... i even use them to quickly transfer files when im recording in my makeshift music studio (grandparents garage....only when im there on the weekends)
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nookkin
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Yes, they're definitely obsolete. However, I've found that I need to use my floppy drive at times (like setting up my quad-boot configuration and updating my BIOS). I'm not planning on ditching it anytime soon. Though I don't ever use floppies for transferring files (not enough room on a floppy).
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SCOTT
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they are not obsolete, every pc i build i put a floppy drive in............good for backing up your bios, and installing new bios updates........and ya need one to load raid drivers while installing windows xp agian.....and i run raid, so at least to me, there are definitely not obsolete........as i use them for to big applications.......bios,and raid..........scott
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lwdierlam
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To a point yes they are obsolete however its always a good idea to keep one up and going laying around... I kinda have four of them stacked up in my computer room on one of the spare parts tables. Granted they are no longer used due to the fact that you are able to flash your bios even from windows you never know when you might have a friend that will come over and need help with an old computer. Or if you have an old pc laying around and you need to do something to it in DOS. Either way it is usually a good idea to keep them around. Same thing with Zip drives (2 of those same pile) Dont have any of the old old floppy drives though lol.
Scott Generally you can backup your bios onto a CD nowadays Ive also have always had my raid drivers on a CD course i have only been using raid for 3 years now. Heck DOS even lets you access external harddrives so throw em on there.
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blubill
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In general I would say yes for these reasons.
1. They are only 1.44 mb
2. They are VERY unreliable (They go bad all the time)
3. The new technology (USB) just blows them away both in size and durability.
There are only a few situations I would recommend using a floppy drive for and they would be if you are using a pre usb Operating System ie... Windows 98 First Edition, Windows 95, Windows 3.1 and Windows NT.
I'm a computer tech |
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Alzaman
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Yes they are, but they have their uses.
USB sticks are a better choice, because more and more motherboards recognise them as boot devices, so you can, effectively, boot from them .. or use another OS like Linux on a USB stick, as i do.
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