PC w/o Floppy?

Forum CPU & Components : Other Components PC w/o Floppy?

I've seen a lot of pc component recommendations from this forum that suggest it's optional to have a floppy disk on a PC.

As I'm building a PC from scratch, I would prefer to not have to add a floppy if I don't have to. However, How do you load the OS without a floppy? Don't you need something to boot from to load the CD drivers?

Newbie from NY

Reply to fedude

Modern OS CD's are bootable. But I still need my floppy for updating BIOS on other systems, and it comes in handy for transfering small files on those systems.

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Reply to Crashman

You do not need to install floppy. I only have two floppy drives and 6 computers. I installed one on my primay system. I use other floppy drive for BIOS update only. I installed the floppy when I need to update BIOS and remove it when I am done.
I transfer files using network. I have set up FTP server so I can get file from any computer have internet connection.

Reply to upec

Aren't many of the new bios providers going to web update capabilities?

Reply to okona

Damn that would suck, loose your connection, loose your board! Besides, do you think that I'm going to connect every system that crosses my bench to the internet? OR that older boards will be updatable that way?

You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!

Reply to Crashman

Besides an online update why can't a bios be made to update from the CDROM? I manage over a 150 workstations and have not use the floppy drive in over a year. Even the clients rarely use them and when they do there is always another option. I agree you need them for older sysyems and there would have to be some bios achanges to use the CD, but I can't see much need for them anymore.

Reply to okona

I know with the Asus update, it gives you an option to download the BIOS update to a location, and THEN prompt to install once its downloaded, but the program has its flaws...like you can only download from 1 of the 5 sites available to get the update. :\

[If loving AMD processors is the path to the Dark Side, consider me a Sith Lord. (dinoX aka Black Dog)]

Reply to dinoX

I would guess the question you would need to ask yourself is "do you feel lucky, punk?" oh wait, wrong movie... no the only reason I can think of is if you have old data on floppy disc. I still have about 300 disc laying around and for less the $15 it didn't make sense to not get one.

Reply to The_Bear

As stupid as this may sound, sometimes a floppy is FASTER. For instance, I often encounter systems with 1 file missing, something small like 13kb. Well, I copy it from my hard drive to a floppy and then from the floppy to the other PC, OR I can put in a CD-RW, run through the entire writing program, finally write it to disk, then put it on the other PC. Obviously I save about 5 steps sending it to floppy rather than CD.

You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!

Reply to Crashman

Network is even faster. Just drop the file to the file server and then copy the file to destination computer and since I have setup a ftp server I can access the file not only on my LAN but any computer have internet connection. It is also more reliable. Floppy disk is not very reliable. I have a few dead on me.

Reply to upec

They die all the time, but read up a few post, I'm not about to hook every computer that crosses my bench up to the network and make sure it's configured for my network, then change the network back to the customer's configuration if necessary. You're talking about 45 minutes extra work to transfer a couple files I could have done in about a minute on floppy.

You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!

Reply to Crashman

If there is only smaller files that are missing it will be a lot easier to connect to the ftp server and download the file from Internet. There is no point bring customer's computers home.

Reply to upec

There is when they get sent here from the shop.

You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!

Reply to Crashman

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