# When was the last time you used a floppy disk? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 9, 2008, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772 "2008-03-09T22:15:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/41 "2008-03-10T19:32:47Z")
Fairly often. I do a reformat and reinstall every six months or so, and the best way to do it is still with a floppy that has FDISK on it. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/42 "2008-03-10T19:57:47Z")
At least some people don’t have worthless library access. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/43 "2008-03-10T19:59:38Z")
I use them whenever I bring work home to work on. Last time was last Thursday - loaded it back on my work computer this a.m. My work and home computer both have disc drives. Until I replace one or the other computer, I’ve got no interest in learning how to use a different device. ---
**Author:** ![Fionn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/44 "2008-03-10T20:00:54Z")
2003, when I was working on school assignments both at my apartment and at my part-time job. Once my laptop’s floppy drive bought it, I switched to e-mailing things to myself. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/45 "2008-03-10T20:03:01Z")
About 4 years ago. I was cleaning out my desk and found an old copy of [Galleons of Glory](http://www.mobygames.com/game/galleons-of-glory-the-secret-voyage-of-magellan) that came on 5 1/4 disks. I wouldn’t be able to play it now, since my current system has no internal floppy, although I have an external 3 1/2. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/46 "2008-03-10T20:27:26Z")
You can get USB floppy drives. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2008, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/47 "2008-03-10T20:33:24Z")
Today. I save files with personal information to disks. Makes it a little harder for cyber snoops to get to it. ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/48 "2008-03-11T00:27:17Z")
\ [QUOTE=Harmonious Discord] At least some people don’t have worthless library access. [/QUOTE] They’re trying to compensate for the only access to the library catalog being on god-knows-how-old amber-screened terminals until about 2000. Seriously. Seriously - they got a bond passed a few years ago, tore down the old building, built a new one three times as large, upgraded to brand-new technology throughout the building, hugely expanded their collection. It went from being “okay because I grew up there but really kind of a poor attempt” to “the nicest public library I’ve ever been in”. \ ---
**Author:** ![Tool\_of\_the\_Conspiracy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@Tool\_of\_the\_Conspiracy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tool_of_the_Conspiracy)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/49 "2008-03-11T00:57:44Z")
The last time I used a floppy was in a quixotic attempt to get an old laptop connected to my home network. It doesn’t have Ethernet, USB, or an optical drive, so I used a floppy to transfer the drivers for a PCMCIA WiFi card to it. The drivers were too big for one floppy, so I used an old copy of PKZip to make a volume-spanning archive. When I finally managed to get all the data to the laptop and re-assemble it, the install program refused to run on the version of Windows there. Someday, maybe I’ll try to figure out how to set up a serial-port network to install a newer version. I bought a wireless mouse for my wife’s laptop last month, and it came with drivers on a floppy. Fortunately, they weren’t necessary. (It doesn’t have a floppy drive.) \ [QUOTE=NinjaChick] Seriously - they got a bond passed a few years ago, tore down the old building, built a new one three times as large, upgraded to brand-new technology throughout the building, hugely expanded their collection. It went from being “okay because I grew up there but really kind of a poor attempt” to “the nicest public library I’ve ever been in”. [/QUOTE] Did the bond include operating funds? Here, the county passed a construction bond and built several new libraries, but closed down the whole system for six months (while construction continued!) because the operating bond failed. They’re open again now, but managed by a corporation, and for only 24 hours a week. \ ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/50 "2008-03-11T01:04:43Z")
In about 5 minutes I’ll use one for the first time in months. ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/51 "2008-03-11T01:35:04Z")
A month or two ago, and then a year and a half before that. My computer has a SATA drive, and I need the drivers for it on a floppy to install Windows/format/etc. Whatever happened to the ‘plug-and-play’ concept? Especially for one of the core parts of my machine. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/52 "2008-03-11T01:45:18Z")
Oddly enough last week. I had to scrub, re-partition and reformat a PC for friend and The version of windows XP I had was an upgrade and not auto-booting. Before that it was years. The second odd thing was that in trying to make a bootable floppy EVERY \*\*\*\*ing every floppy I tried that I pulled out of various corners and boxes would not format without errors. I wasted at least 2 -3 hours trying to find a floppy that would format. The third and oddest thing of all was that several months prior I had given a box of 100 sealed floppies to the assistant of one of my co-workers for her parochial school (I have all kinds of stuff lying around) and the day after I went through this frustrating exercise, the box was back on my desk with a note that the school didn’t use slide rules or floppies anymore, but thanks. The first fresh one formatted and worked fine. I never thought used floppies would just “go bad”. It’s weird. ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/53 "2008-03-11T01:50:00Z")
Today. I use 'em all of the time–they’re flat enough they fit into folders, cheap enough I can get 25 for $5.00, and can hold individual files big enough that I can squeeze a handful of annual employee reports on them. They’re _perfect_! It’s just that they are a prime example of hardware that is being phased out before its time . . . Thumb drives are just too expensive, and just physically aren’t good for folders. Also, they’re usually too large of storage capacity that a handful of files only takes up a small fraction of space. Floppies = perfect physical size + perfect storage capacity + cheap. Tripler Yup, I love 'em. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/54 "2008-03-11T01:52:46Z")
I used a floppy disc tonight because I want to transfer a word document from my home PC to a crappy laptop I use for word processing in work. ---
**Author:** ![AHarris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bcef8e/32.png) [@AHarris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHarris)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/55 "2008-03-11T03:41:41Z")
Last week: At work I needed to edit the serial number and model number on a laptop. The only copy of the software to do this that we have comes on floppy. This is for laptops bought as recently as last month. ---
**Author:** ![groo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecd19e/32.png) [@groo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groo)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/56 "2008-03-11T05:52:28Z")
About a year ago; I was fooling around with vmac, a Macintosh 68K emulator (for any platform, I think, but this was on a Mac G5), and suddenly realized that I had a closet full of notes and records and games and such on floppies, so I spent a weekend reading everything out on my G3, archiving everything to CDR and dumping the floppies. (Of course, I’ll have to do the same in a few years when the CDRs start rotting). ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/57 "2008-03-11T13:00:52Z")
We use them nearly weekly at work. Our tech department sends us custom artwork to be loaded onto our PC that runs the engraving machine. It comes on a floppy, since it is a tiny bit of data, and they are easy to mail. Of course, once they are loaded onto the PC we don’t uses them again until we have a crash and need to reload. We are supposed to back-up onto the floppies, too, but my particular files are way too big, so I use a flash drive. But nearly every other store in the chain backs up onto floppies…if they remember to back-up. Which I should do tomorrow, thanks for reminding me… ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/58 "2008-03-11T18:32:48Z")
A few weeks ago; we have one PC here that must be 15 years old, it just won’t die. One of my cow-orkers maintains a text file on there in the old PE (offshoot of WordPerfect) editor. Only way to get the file off the computer is by floppy, luckily I still have one computer left with a floppy drive. ---
**Author:** ![Belrix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed655f/32.png) [@Belrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belrix)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/59 "2008-03-11T19:41:00Z")
[QUOTE=Tripler] Today. I use 'em all of the time–they’re flat enough they fit into folders, cheap enough I can get 25 for $5.00, and can hold individual files big enough that I can squeeze a handful of annual employee reports on them. They’re _perfect_! It’s just that they are a prime example of hardware that is being phased out before its time . . . Thumb drives are just too expensive, and just physically aren’t good for folders. Also, they’re usually too large of storage capacity that a handful of files only takes up a small fraction of space. Floppies = perfect physical size + perfect storage capacity + cheap. Tripler Yup, I love 'em. [/QUOTE] What’s wrong with a burned CD? Cheap, flat, and actually readable on all modern machines. You’re creating files on media that nobody in 3 years will be able to read. So what if the CD is 99% empty - they cost about a dime when purchased in large quantities. ---
**Author:** ![Santo\_Rugger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Santo\_Rugger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santo_Rugger)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2008, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772/60 "2008-03-11T19:54:46Z")
What’s a floppy disk? Probably when I was a freshman or sophomore in college, so sometime around '01. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-was-the-last-time-you-used-a-floppy-disk/440772.md?page=4)