After having my LS-120 serve as a floppy drive after it lost its ability to use LS-120 disks, I today discovered that it has lost its ability to use floppy disks. Does anyone have any suggestions for a floppy drive I could replace it with?

I believe someone asked about quiet floppy drives not long ago, IIRC there were plenty of answers in that thread. Mabe you'll find some good suggestions in it.

Looks like only Panasonic and Sony still makes these old floppy drives, I just got a Panasonic before X-Mas to replace my old Epson that was still working, but I didn't like the old beige color of the face plate. You can find a Panasonic for around $9us

I am considering one of these, with a built in flash card reader
http://www.svc.com/mit-f404m-bk-93.html

Dunno how quite it is & @ $26.00 certainly dearer than the dear old basic floppy. However, if you need to these cards you will certainly reduce the spaghetti factor.

How about moving into the 21st century, and using a USB flash drive?

That was a joke, but really, why do you need a floppy anyway? I removed mine from my PC about 6 months ago, and will not even have one in my HTPC.

The Sony drive I got about a year ago is pretty quiet, not that I use it a lot (only for the occational boot disk or RAID drivers when installing an OS).

Actually, I have the Sony drive as well, and it is pretty quiet, unless there is no disk in there, and the OS is searching it!

I have a USB floppy drive for my system... This drive is external so it's easy to reduce the noise. Most of the time, it's disconnected and I only plug it when I need it... I know it's an old technology, but I was happy to have one when I had to reinstall Windows, just to install the SATA driver to complete the setup.

First thing I'd do when building a new system, is to burn all those floppy drivers (drivers that come on a floppy) to a CD, that way, you won't need the floppy again next time.

Hello:

I recommend the Mitsumi with memory card reader -- it will use a USB port to do it, but you actually can use the bay for another device at the same time! It isn't a noisy floppy -- and how often do you use it anyway?

Question for flash drive users. Are there any flash (CF/SD/xD) drives that can function as an A: drive?

The first thing I discovered when trying to install Windows XP is that additional drivers MUST be placed in the A: drive. You couldn't choose a different drive to point to for the drivers, no they HAD to be on the A: drive.

I'm just curious if there are any out there.

Same thing here, except that the XP setup cannot install SATA drivers from a CD-ROM, but from a floppy or equivalent (A: drive)... Il you don't install the SATA drivers, then you get a BSOD and cannot complete the installation. Some old SATA controllers are now autodetected in setup if you have a XP CD-ROM including SP2... but personally, I like to install the lastest drivers. I don't trust those MS native drivers...

Some USB flash drives are bootable, some not. I found one test only online that reported on that.

I still like a floppy for diagnostics and repair. That's what old dead Pentiums and 486' are for. However, you can download and burn The Ultimate Boot CD to get a bootable cd full of dos diagnostics.

One can always slipstream the drivers into a custom Windows XP disc.


As Neil kinda mentioned, all readers are connected via USB. It's up to the BIOS if it can show up the reader as an USB FDD (maybe needs even the legacy option enabled in BIOS for Windows' setup to see the drive, I don't have any experience). Some USB memory sticks can be configured to show up as USB HDD or USB FDD, but I don't know whether the functionality for USB FDD would need to be in the reader, or if the Flash card needs to be specially formatted.

Cheers,

Jan

I know. And I never want to have to do anything like that again.

I thought it was pretty painless when I did that to get SP2 on my old SP1 XP CD...

Slipstreaming drivers, unless someone can tell me a better way, is a lot more complicated than slipstreaming service packs.

I need to bring a few dozen KB to class, I am waiting for the 1GB USB Flash drives to come down in price and I have over a hundred floppies lying around in a case. Given the circumstances, I figure I minus well use a floppy so my teacher may keep the disc and I don't waste a 700MB CD-R.

LOL. Isn't a CD-R cheaper than a floppy?

I guess if you are taking multiple CD-R's, that you must turn in, then I can see where it might get expensive. In that case, you need a way to re-write.

Yeah, something like a CD-R, but writeable. Like maybe a CD-RW, perhaps? .

Seriously, when I swore off of floppies, I decided to use CD-RWs instead. Although they're not QUITE as dirt cheap as CD-Rs, they can still be had for not that much money. It might be worthwhile for you to try.

As it stands, I have a pile of floppies taking up space I could have CD-Rs in, I need to access the occasional floppy disk on my desktop (for Windows installation having a floppy drive is more convienent than slipstreaming the SATA drivers) and I need something taking up that 3.5" slot in the front of my PC because the case manufacturer left it open. Right now it is just more convient for me to waste $20 on a quiet floppy drive so I can use a floppy disk.

I'd recommend the Sony over a Panasonic floppy drive (both new). Haven't tried/heard a Samsung yet. BTW the sound won't sound smooth or anything, you will still hear that tapping-on-metal sound .

Haven't heard the USB drives by Sony, though it's apparently even quieter than their internal version (can anyone confirm this?). But anyhow, those USB drives seem to cost as much as a CD-RW which is kinda crazy. Plus, no system is truly complete without the mighty floppy drive!~ Those foolish people at Apple...

Awwww, I'am disappointed with the most of you, you don't embrace the past and just jump onto the "NEW" bandwagon without realizing that sometimes new is not always better. "Always remember your past, a country with no history has no future !"

Adavantages that the mighty old floppy has that the CDR can't touch:

1. More compact
2. More robust to dirt, dust and environment
3. Easily writes and re-writes
4. Media is ubiqouis
5. Bootable on 100% of PCs
6. A design classic like a Leica M3, SR70, AppleII or XT

Amen Bro!

That said, as a unrepentant floppy user, Sony's are the quietest of all currently made FDDs. I have a few older non-Sony drives that are quiet, but they're all OEM pulls. Buying a new Sony FDD will give you the quietest FDD that's currently available.

LOL.

1. The compact disc is flatter
2. The CD is waterproof
3. Maybe, but slow
4. I think we can just about say that the CD is ubiquitous as well
5. Depends if the proposed PC has a floppy drive
6. Not sure what this really means...guess I'm too young to know

Guys, I want to support US industry so I'm thinking of getting a Memorex floppy disk drive:

http://www.memorex.com/html/products_de ... &opento=11

What do you think of it?

Exactly what makes you think it's made in the US? If it isn't made in Asia for Memorex, I'd be highly surprised. Their cassette tapes and floppy disks were inferior to other major brands. Not exactly a synonym for quality.

Get this one.

It doesn't matter, I want the profits to be in the pockets of my countrymen. The economy doesn't grow by itself.

As for quality, memorex CDs are high quality so I'd expect their disk drives to be high quality as well. The alternative that I'm aware of is Imation:

http://www.imation.com/products/diskett ... ve_pc.html

Considering that I am buying a new drive because of an Imation drive, I'd rather not buy from them but if they're recommended over Memorex I'd be more than happy to buy from them.

Urgh... Just go for whoever has the better/cheaper product. Capitalism (an American value) at its finest.