Do people still use 3 and a half inch floppy discs?

Question

I did a few college courses a few years back and stored a lot of my work/essays on 3 and a half inch floppy discs. My new pc which I bought a few months ago doesn't have a floppy disc drive on it - it only has one for cd's and DVDs etc. Do PCs still get sold with floppy disc drives on them or is it all portable memory sticks etc nowadays? Think I'll need to get a floppy disc drive installed to access my old work!

Answer 1

Yes, there are a few people who still use it but most modern computers don't come with built in floppy drives anymore. And it's becoming harder to get external floppy drives. Floppy disks are an outdated format and they don't have a large capacity.

Answer 2

floppy drives have started to be phased out for some time now and if you buy a new computer, such as from Dell,you have to give them the spec and request a floppy. As some training establishments have computers with floppy drives it will probably take a year or so still before they are phased out completely, but the time will come as the usb memory sticks have really taken over - hold so much more etc. You can however buy external floppy drive but really it is a bit redundant and I should just get yourself a memory stick unless of course you have data on floppies which you need to access which you say you have, but courses of a few years ago will have been updated greatly so the previous work might not be of use any more. Surely though you have all the instruction sheets, manuals and exercises that you were given.

Answer 3

New computers being sold today usually don't come with internal floppy drives.

There are still floppy drives that you can buy separately (both internal & external) and also some new motherboards still have the socket to fit an internal one.

Diskette died down because the USB disc and CD's/DVD's became more popular as they can hold a lot more data and sold at a cheap price.

Answer 4

yes you may need a floppy disc drive installed to access this old work, and mostly people do use the memory sticks, they usually will put a floppy drive in for extra money, but you may be able to have a library put those discs onto a memory stick for you

Answer 5

You might have to find a business which can copy your floppy's over to cd's. I know that there are businesses that can do this for VHS/VCR over to DVD's. I think the cost is fairly cheap.



I have know idea what the company would be called (even though I am in the same situation - lots and lots of floppy's that need to be converted to cd's - and my wedding tape to a DVD!)



So I would suggest contacting a computer repair or second-hand computer store to see if they can do it or know of a company that can.



Good luck!

Answer 6

Nobody uses floppy disks. You can probably buy a usb floppy disk drive. Get yourself a 8 or 16 gig memory stick for around 30 bucks.

Answer 7

You can buy a floppy disk drive that connects via the USB port. I think they are about 30-40 dollars. Search for "USB floppy drive" on Amazon. I got mine at CompUSA, but I suspect Best Buy has them also.



They are easy to use, they are powered by the USB port (so plug it into a powered USB port) and they appear like any other USB drive.

Answer 8

No, floppies no longer get sold with the pc and cost extra to even have installed.

Answer 9

They have been discontiued but you can still get internal or external floppy disc drives

Answer 10

to access data you have on a floppy disc, you need to buy a floppy disc drive, you can buy them pretty cheap on Ebay, make sure its USB so you can easily attach it to your new computer.

Answer 11

Not at all. Floppy disks are completely obsolete and no one uses them, as portable flash USB drives have been considered a much better alternative. And they are. PCs don't get sold with them anymore.



Sowwy...T_T

Answer 12

No pc's now a days don't come with flopyp disc drives. You either have to build the PC yourself and add it yourself, or pay extra to have it installed.

Answer 13

well uhhh floppies are pretty much dead technology.I installed a floppy drive on my new computer and i kinda like them more than cds.the bad thing is that they don't have as much memory on them.

Answer 14

If you stored it a few years ago, its highly doubtful if they would still work even if you managed to get a computer that could read them. They are not reliable, that's why they were replaced.

Next time send your important stuff to your inbox...then all of yahoo will have to collapse before you lose your data! (Knock wood!)

Answer 15

No they are out of date and the new computers do not have them built in anymore. The USB stick is king at this time.

Answer 16

oh god them were the days



i'd lose data all the time because of them!



USB drives are very popular for a reason,

reliable

cheap

easy to use



eSATA is on its way A LOT faster than USB

Answer 17

just find someone with an old pc that has email access and have them email the contents of the disks to your email account and save the data there.

Answer 18

Lost a memory key, and used it.



I dropped it, and it broke.



I realized why people switched to memory keys.