Floppy drive replacements

**snct** · 09-07-2004, 09:12 PM

Who here uses a flash memory drive to boot an OS? These drive are fast replacing floppy drives, but how many of them (internal, or external) are bootable?

If you're doing it, how do you do it? Is there a boot setting in your bios for it, or what?

**ZennouRyuu** · 09-07-2004, 10:25 PM

They can be just a bootable as the BIOS of the mainboard lets them, I currently use a KNOPPIX CD to boot up and load all of its settings off of my USB flash drive

**beezlebubsbum** · 09-07-2004, 10:57 PM

About a year ago now, Panasonic released a floppy drive that could store 32mb on a standard floppy disk. I use one of those, but it is a lot slower then flash memory, but a lot cheaper too!

**ZennouRyuu** · 09-08-2004, 03:43 AM

Damn, a 32MB floppy, I can vaguely remember recording ~1MB to a floppy that took about a minute to finish. I would go insane spending half an hour listening to that floppy drive music!

**jro** · 09-08-2004, 01:43 PM

I invested in Zip drives a while back when I thought they were going to be 'the next big thing'. Yeah, well we all know how that turned out. I am looking to switch over to USB key drives now, but I need to find a way to get rid of the 30 or 40 zip disks I have laying around now.

Anybody have any recommendations for good USB flash drives?

**snct** · 09-08-2004, 02:51 PM

Originally Posted by jro

...

Anybody have any recommendations for good USB flash drives?

I've got a SanDisk Cruzer. It's pretty nice.

**ZennouRyuu** · 09-08-2004, 10:46 PM

Originally Posted by jro

Anybody have any recommendations for good USB flash drives?

Pretty much any of them are good, I havnt seen much difference, Look for USB2.0/backwards compatable to 1.0 and an ass-load of storage space (you would be suprised how quickly 256MB goes

)

**snct** · 09-09-2004, 12:39 AM

I agree about the capacity, but the form factor of the drive can be important also; like if you have recessed USB ports on your box, the drive may be difficult to plug in, or even block one of the other ports. You may want to check one of the many reviews on the web.

**ZennouRyuu** · 09-09-2004, 04:20 PM

Yeah, thats a good point, but most include an extension cable that could eliminate this problem

**beezlebubsbum** · 09-10-2004, 12:34 AM

Most, but not all. Also, some come with great security features, and some even come with pre-built operating systems on them. I faguely remember Mandrake Linux released a usb storage key with a small version of their operating system on them.