Adding a floppy drive

Skint_Catt

Hi Techies!!

Wonder if any of you angels can help - about to buy a base unit just to update my antique PC a little - not high spec, just enough to be able to surf ok and run Office.

However, not many of these have floppy drive anymore and I wondered how I could add one - what do I need to look for and anything else to consider.

The base unit I am considering has two 'optical drives' one which already has a Multi-format DVD RW in it, the other is empty - does this mean I can slide a floppy drive into it? Can I take the floppy drive from my old Compaq and use it in my new box (Emachine)?

Got a certain amount of user knowledge, but useless when it comes to hardware!

Please help!!!!

Thanks S_C

Joe_Bloggs

You must mean drive bays rather than drives. Check the external drive bays that you have. Internal ones are not much use where removable media is an issue. Floppies/Zip drives are 3.5 inch and DVD/CDROM are 5.25 inch wide.
So a floppy in a CD/DVD bay will flop around a bit. You may have to buy a 5.25 to 3.5 bay adapter and an appropriate 5.25 bezel with a 3.5 inch slot.

Buy a floppy/7+ in one reader combo as flash media is taking over. You could get a portable USB floppy as an alternative.
J_B.

alared

http://www.thecomputershop.co.uk/show_prod.php?prodid=659

Joe_Bloggs

Or at 1/3 of the price from ebuyer:-
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=6716650872&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=23925
J_B.

KrazyFool

yeah you can use your old floppy drive but you will need to attach it to a 5.25 bay adapter. Depends on what exacly you need it for, instead of around a £10 for the drive & bay you could spend it on a 128mb flash memory stick which are great!

culpepper

well sometimes you do need the floppy, for instance you can make a floppy to get your password reset when you forget it in windows XP. I didnt have one when I built mine originally but went on to put one in when I got partition magic as you needed to make rescue floppies. As long as you have the 3.5 inch bays with the little covers,you can easily fit a floppy.

stuartw101

Joe_Bloggs wrote:

Or at 1/3 of the price from ebuyer:-
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=6716650872&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=23925
J_B.

i was waiting for someone to post that because £10 for a floppy drive is a joke

Toxteth_OGrady

A quid!

:cool:

TOG

Supr3mo

You will find buildyourown.org.uk a very useful site for what you want to do:
https://www.buildyourown.org.uk

Paul_Varjak

You can call me nosy if you like, toxteth, but what appeal does a UK money-saving website hold for someone living in the US?

Not trying to drive you away - you have been very helpful to me - just curious that's all!

Toxteth_OGrady

Hi nosy [sic], sorry Paul,

A surreptitious answer but the Googleable clues are in my username, avatar and public profile.

Perception is reality and Bambi's not a cartoon deer!!

:cool:

TOG