The only remaining use for a floppy drive…
is when you’re trying to reinstall Windows and you need to load up an SATA driver (although I suppose I could’ve also used a USB thumbdrive, which would destroy this last remaining use for the floppy). Can someone please tell me why:
- I need a special SATA driver. I understand that perhaps I might need a specialized driver for maximum performance, but I don’t see why it’s necessary for baseline functionality.
- The SP1a slipstream build of WinXP on my May 2005 MSDN DVD doesn’t include a standard SATA driver. And while I’m asking questions, where is the slipstream SP2 build? That one better include SATA drivers
Seriously, I’m really wondering why. Can someone with technical knowledge clue me in? Thanks!
May 26th, 2005 at 1:47 pm
I spent 2 hours last night trying to get the SATA drivers to load using usb and it wouldnt work. I would like to know how too.
May 26th, 2005 at 2:58 pm
The SP2 slipstreamed CD doesn’t include SATA drivers either.
It’s a bit complicated, but here are the instructions I used:
http://greenmachine.msfnhosting.com/READING/addraid.htm
It is best to burn with a rewritable until you get it working, it took me about 3 tries to get it right
Also since you’re already editing the CD I recommend making an unattended install script - why should you sit there waiting for setup to ask you questions when a text file can answer them for you
The best guide I’ve seen for this, which includes pretty much everything you can do automatically during windows setup (including using a dvd and then installing just about every app you use) is here:
http://unattended.msfn.org/
May 27th, 2005 at 1:54 am
Actually the Army Logisitics system is powered, for the most part, on floppy disks. They have an FTP option on a lot of our automated systems but I don’t know of any supply people that actually use them when order/receiving parts. We’re still using the old programming languages to program our systems. It’s really sort of sad.
May 27th, 2005 at 5:28 am
Is that due to security concerns or just a general slowness to embrace technology? I can see how some decision makers would have trouble trusting a network over physical media.
May 28th, 2005 at 6:37 am
It’s due to slowness to embrace technology. Trust in our networks isn’t a problem. I work on a SIPRNET, which is a secure encrypted network. The problem is, more or less, that we still work on crappy systems written in 1980s programming languages haha.
August 3rd, 2005 at 9:36 pm
Agreed 100%. I just built my own small form pc and the damn floppy was almost a deal breaker for the SATA drivers…sheesh. That and the mobo I was using allgedly had SATA support in bios. Alas, didn’t work. Stoopid floppy. And for the USB question, windows resets the usb bus at a fairly high level during booting up etc… It therefore shuts off access to the USB device. Stoopid floppy.
May 27th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
Windows XP only supports certain USB floppy drives for loading SATA drivers. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916196/en-us for details.