New Dell........NO Floppie ???

Status
Not open for further replies.
C

councillor

Posts: 9   +0
A friend just got a new Dell with no floppy drive or space in the case for one. Not sure but the MoBo probably doesn't even have a cable slot for one BUT i haven't looked at that yet.

What gives...??
I know MS is trying to leave DOS but there's a ton of dos fixes and small utilities to run at times.

Does my friend have to burn everything to a bootable cdr every time he wants to use one or DOS Utility.?

:mad:
 
That's becoming very common now among most companies....Dell, HP etc. Just bought some new IBM laptops at my company....all without floppies. For the most part, bootable cd's can handle everything. If you really need one, external floppies (usb) can be had for a price.

I'm surprised that there's not slot for it in the case (desktop, right?). There probably still is a port for the cable on the motherboard though.
 
I had to go to a Realtor's the other day to install two floppy drives. When I got there I discovered that their Dell PC's had front panel's for floppy drives, but NO drive cage to mount them in.
 
Yep, it's a desktop.

it's a sad freggin time i guess. "For one thing", I just can't blank-blank wait to try to flash a BIOS man :-(
 
Originally posted by acidosmosis
I had to go to a Realtor's the other day to install two floppy drives. When I got there I discovered that their Dell PC's had front panel's for floppy drives, but NO drive cage to mount them in.
Click to expand...

The perfect quandary. LOL
 
Why do you wanna flash the BIOS ? Do you have any good reason to do so ?

Do a search on BIOS & you'll see how many failed attempts you can count on the forums.
 
Anyone know where to buy a case adapter where i can install a floppie into a regular cd case slot..?? It seem that i've seen them somewhere.
 
If you want to install a floppy-drive without having a cage, get a 5 1/4" to 3 1/2" adapter and build it into one of the large slots.
 
To Didou:
BIOS flash not needed yet, that was just an example!!

Well, Thanks All.....and thx again for the adapter link.
 
Solution

Hey,
I had someone call me up recently regarding this same issue. It seems Dell casually "unchecks" the floppy drive option from the order form, causing your computer to arrive without the drive and you SOL. Dell sells a floppy drive kit for under $25. It includes everything you need to mount the floppy in the spot where it is designed to go (on systems shipped w/o a floppy, there is simply a plastic "wall" where the drive would be...but the outline of the drive is still there. you can bump out the "wall" and then have a fully functional spot for the drive). Don't try to go buy a kit from a store; it doesn't come with dell's proprietary mounting bracket and therefore won't work.

The motherboard has a spot where you plug the drive in, so you don't need to worry about that.

Dell's number is 18009993355. Follow the menus to get to accessories/replacement parts.

The part number you are looking for is #Y2162 for the Dimension 2400-style case (not sure if it is any different for the 4000 or 8000 series...I'd guess it isn't, but check with the rep to be sure).

Hope this helps!

-Micky
 
If a floppy drive really is needed for a couple of file transfers once a year, can't you just leave the case open for that moment and leave the drive unscrewed?
 
Floppy drives and disks are going the way of the DODO, ie extinct the I.T company i work for don't install floppy drives in their pre-built systems and are only available if requested by a customer as part of their choose their own specs option. CD-R's's and CD-RW's are the way forward now. like the others have said if you want one bad enough get one, Mobo's still support floppy drives tho not all cases have a 3 1/2 inch bay to put one in. DEll do install floppy drives if asked for like most comapnys now. i'm guessing your friend didn't ask for one, it shouldnt be expected anymore that a floppy drive would be installed.
 
Wouldn't it be easier to just go out and buy a CompactFlash card and external reader? They seem to be really cheap and hold a lot more info than a floppy.
 
Originally posted by jshields13
Wouldn't it be easier to just go out and buy a CompactFlash card and external reader? They seem to be really cheap and hold a lot more info than a floppy.
Click to expand...

Good point, but I think he was leaning more towards the thought of boot options....:)
 
The purpose of a floppy drive nowadays is that of a robust storage that will work no matter what.

You can use 3.5" floppies on virtually every active PC today (well, not the newest craze from OEMs obviously). There are no special software or hardware requirements.

CDs are nice but older computers will not boot them and you can write them only on some computers. Besides, making a bootbale CD is such a hassle.

All sorts of solid state media are even rarer to find bootable and you can't trust them to be compatible.
 
OK. That's why I'm a newbe. It does seem that the industry is heading away from floppys though. I see more and more new PCs being offered standard with CF type slots instead of floppy drives.
 
The likes of Powerquest's Partition Magic and Drive Image can also be started from their emergency floppies, a solution often seen as sent from Heaven.
 
Drive Image 7 boots from CD (needs 256MB RAM) and features a Windows based recovery environment. We'll probably see more and more CD based tools come on the the market now that the floppy is soon to be dead.
 
Originally posted by realblackstuff
The likes of Powerquest's Partition Magic and Drive Image can also be started from their emergency floppies, a solution often seen as sent from Heaven.
Click to expand...
The last time I used Partition Magic from a floppy, it wanted to write to it. I couldn't start it from write-protected floppy, so I wonder how it would work if burned to a bootable CD. Maybe with a ramdisk, I don't know. The version I tested was 7.0 if I remember correctly.
 
I have run into the same problem. I recently received my Dell Dimension 2400 with no floppy drive. My other half needs one for work stuff. My questions are:
1) On a base model Dimension 2400 (p4) that has dual drive (cd-rom and cd-rw) and has the standard power supply (200 Watt?) and all the other stuff from the factory - will adding a floppy drive to this configuration cause problems with the power supply (blow it up?)?
2) Does anyone have a link to dell where I can get this floppy drive and the frame (kit) ?
3) Is there any other issues/problems that I need to be aware of or try to avoid?
4) Also, in the future I will definately be adding beefier memory and potentially another fan. What about the effects on the power supply in these conditions?
Any help or info would be GREATLY appreciated..
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

A
The oldest release of MS-DOS precursor 86-DOS is now available for download
Replies
5
Views
323
Aranarth
A
Shawn Knight
German railway seeks IT admin to manage MS-DOS and Windows 3.11 systems
2
Replies
25
Views
491
Ben Myers
Ben Myers
A
Ancient pre-release version of OS/2 2.0 discovered, released in VM-friendly packages
Replies
5
Views
167
ZedRM
ZedRM

Latest posts

Back