Building new PC, do I need a floppy drive?

R

Red Squirrel

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Nov 29, 2009
Messages
9,223
Seems like a silly question, but I find that even in the past 5-10 years it's common for motherboards, network cards, etc to have drivers that come on a floppy. Especially for hard drive controller drivers where you need to hit F8 at the windows install and it specifically looks for a floppy. Or does Windows 7 do it differently? That's what I'll be going with.

I'm thinking the answer is no, but just want to make sure. I don't even have an external, so I don't want to be caught with my pants down half way through my setup.
 
I haven't used a floppy disk for drivers since windows 95.

I do use a floppy often for windows 2008r2 though still, but only for vmware esx pvscsi driver, so that isn't even a real floppy.
 
My last floppy drive was an LS-120 (which rocked by the way). Ever since it died long ago I've done without and been just fine.
 
patrickdk said:
Not true, but atleast with a cdrom drive using floppy boot mode.
I have several computers that will not boot from usb at all.
Click to expand...

how new/old are those machines?
OP is building a new machine.
 
I was worried about this a few years ago, but instead of buying an installed floppy, I just bought a usb floppy for just in case. I put it in a plastic baggie and keep it in the drawer in my desk. Honestly, I haven't pulled it out in probably 3 years or so...
 
If you're buying stuff made in the last several years, the answer is definitely a no. I haven't had anything that required a floppy since the Prescott days.
 
I don't even have optical drives in my computers any more. Haven't had a floppy in a machine since 2002.
 
Good to know, I'll go without one then. I was mostly concerned about the initial install as sometimes stuff like network or sata drivers will come on a floppy. But guess it would be a CD now days? What about if windows does not detect the drives and I have to do the F8 thing, how does that work in Windows 7? Will it let me eject the Windows CD then put the driver disc in? Though most of the time it detects them so probably wont have to worry.
 
Windows 7 does it all. If you do have to install a network driver, you'll do it after Windows is installed and running, so putting the CD in is no problem.

Once the network is up any other needed drivers will be downloaded automatically.
 
jwcalla said:
Windows 7 does it all. If you do have to install a network driver, you'll do it after Windows is installed and running, so putting the CD in is no problem.

Once the network is up any other needed drivers will be downloaded automatically.
Click to expand...

What about when it says it can't detect drives and you have to hit F8 to add a driver (remember the windows disc is still in the drive). Or does windows 7 not do that? I know XP would do that sometimes, 2003 almost all the time.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Good to know, I'll go without one then. I was mostly concerned about the initial install as sometimes stuff like network or sata drivers will come on a floppy. But guess it would be a CD now days? What about if windows does not detect the drives and I have to do the F8 thing, how does that work in Windows 7? Will it let me eject the Windows CD then put the driver disc in? Though most of the time it detects them so probably wont have to worry.
Click to expand...

Just plug in a USB key with the drivers on it during setup.
 
If you really want a floppy drive you could buy a USB one and keep it stored in case you need it.
 
If you really want a floppy drive you could buy a USB one and keep it stored in case you need it.
Click to expand...

At work I did that 5 to 7 years ago when I stopped building systems with floppy drives and was still using windows XP. It worked well for the times I needed a floppy. Although I have not used this in quite some time.
 
If you absolutely think you "may" need one, just get a USB one. I have had a few scenarios in the past few years trying to load drivers for RAID cards and only had options to do so via floppy. USB floppy drives come in handy in that aspect, but there's no need to have one hardwired in your PC at all.
 
Red Squirrel said:
What about when it says it can't detect drives and you have to hit F8 to add a driver (remember the windows disc is still in the drive). Or does windows 7 not do that? I know XP would do that sometimes, 2003 almost all the time.
Click to expand...

Unless you have some kind of exotic disk controller setup (or maybe RAID, I know nothing of it), Windows won't have any problems detecting drives and installing the drivers.

Seriously... Windows is that good these days. It's almost caught up to Linux. ;)
 
I did some spring cleaning this week and chucked everything related to floppies except the floppy drive sitting in the 3.5" external bay in my server machine. I can't find the cover for the 3.5" bay. :(
 
jwcalla said:
Unless you have some kind of exotic disk controller setup (or maybe RAID, I know nothing of it), Windows won't have any problems detecting drives and installing the drivers.

Seriously... Windows is that good these days. It's almost caught up to Linux. ;)
Click to expand...

Newer Windows systems can use something other than a floppy as well (USB and optical).
 
If you're building with a Z77 chipset motherboard, I don't think you could even find one with a FDD connector. My X38 motherboard has one, but it's 4 years old.

USB FDD if any.

I'm not even sure I'll bother putting an optical drive in the system I'm going to build next month. I only get games via download any more (e.g. Steam), so optical discs are pretty much obsolete. Even Windows 7 itself can be installed from flash media - I prefer doing it that way, in fact.

Only use I have for DVDs is movies/TV shows from Netflix, those that aren't available via streaming. I have a USB DVD-RW drive I'll probably use on those occasions.
 
The Windows 7 and windows 8 installers do it all these days. No need for a floppy w/drivers and I've never had to use a USB drivers setup either. Just put the Win7 disk in, follow a few setup prompts, get a nice drink and 15 minutes or so later Windows will be all up and running. First thing to do once you are up and running, go to windows update and download/install all updates. (If you aren't fimiliar with Win7, go to START BUTTON>ALL PROGRAMS and you should see "Windows Update" near the top of the list.) You will have to do this more then just a few times as only a few updates are installed at a time then it promps to reboot. After reboot, run updates again... Once that's all done, go get the latest drivers for your sound and graphic cards. It may not hurt to visit your MB's manufacturer's site and look for updates for drivers there too, but odds are, Windows will automatically provide you the best drivers for some of those basic OEM features.
 
Pringals said:
The Windows 7 and windows 8 installers do it all these days. No need for a floppy w/drivers and I've never had to use a USB drivers setup either. Just put the Win7 disk in, follow a few setup prompts, get a nice drink and 15 minutes or so later Windows will be all up and running. First thing to do once you are up and running, go to windows update and download/install all updates. (If you aren't fimiliar with Win7, go to START BUTTON>ALL PROGRAMS and you should see "Windows Update" near the top of the list.) You will have to do this more then just a few times as only a few updates are installed at a time then it promps to reboot. After reboot, run updates again... Once that's all done, go get the latest drivers for your sound and graphic cards. It may not hurt to visit your MB's manufacturer's site and look for updates for drivers there too, but odds are, Windows will automatically provide you the best drivers for some of those basic OEM features.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about HW raid card installs? I am not sure I read that by your reply. In the past (pre Vista) days windows wanted a floppy during the OS install so that you could install your OS on the raid or other storage device that needed drivers that Microsoft did not supply. Although as XP progressed (years later) one popular way to avoid the need for a floppy was to slipstream your XP disk with the raid card drivers.
 
Last edited:
A floppy? Where would you even buy one? Anything you would need a floppy for you could do with a USb key. In fact I would be dubious of any board that had a floppy connector.
 
I haven't even used an optical disk in around 5 years for my personal computing needs. Why the hell would you want a floppy drive?
 
OP's question is directly regarding the f6 floppy drivers required during windows xp/2000 installation on RAID and AHCI configurations.

As others have answered, no, you no longer need a floppy drive for such configurations since windows vista. Windows now comes with several generic AHCI/RAID drivers built in. If for some reason your hardware isn't being detected during installation with these built in drivers, you can load the driver via usb mass storage device.
 
Like its been said before windows 7 and 8 can use USB, floppy, or 5 1⁄4 if you wanted. On the HD detech screen their is a choice to load drivers that weird ebay raid card has. Yes 7 still supports 5 1⁄4. But my mortherboard doesn't support it. So i have a combo floppy drive with only the 3 1⁄2- working :(
XP and before, needed a floppy.

I still toy around with my tandy 1000 TL/2 so......
 
Or just download it from the manufacturer's website and install them individually.
Click to expand...

How would you install the OS on a raid array that is not supported by the windows builtin drivers using this method? Or does windows 7 setup somehow allow you to browse the internet while installing similar to most linux installers?
 
drescherjm said:
How would you install the OS on a raid array that is not supported by the windows builtin drivers using this method? Or does windows 7 setup somehow allow you to browse the internet while installing similar to most linux installers?
Click to expand...
These days, who is actually installing a system in total isolation without a laptop or a second already running system nearby?

Even if you went to such a place, you could prepare everything before going there.

I'd make a guess that 90% of the people who are actually installing systems from scratch always have some mobile internet-connected device with them. Even a smartphone would work. Plug in microSD, download, put it in a cardreader.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top