There are USB and sata floppy drives. As for tech support? If it doesn’t work then warranty or replace, there isn’t much else you do with drives beyond that for modern drives either (unless I’ve missed something by not paying attention for years). I may be wrong on the last point, think some hard drives may be repairable but don’t think it was common for consumer level stuff. The worst case is probably a stuck disk that loses it’s protector then gets replaced, both the drive and the disk when copied over.
no not at all and all storage modules regardless of the medium will eventually lose the ability to read/write data until the total integrity of the drive is compromised resulting in total storage module failure
Oh I was thinking more about bad springs and arms than the platters themselves for that part (okay I’m not sure why or if I saw but I believe the old ones used springs in some function maybe the arms so quite old memory at this point don’t quote me), the moveable stuff that can wear out easier. A more specialized repair if possible, not the platters themselves though without losing the data.
If I remember right, I think what you are recalling are old skool hard drives where you had to park the heads! Some of them had inserts and things because there were indeed springs. I could be out to lunch but it feels like that’s what you’re remembering
Is that not all old ‘hard drives’ like before SSD ones or did I misrecall something? Like anything with a platter. Anything newer would be solid state right? Maybe I was more commercial drives, did have that in my background but it’s been a decade now heh.
It’s hard to say because I’m not sure of your age or familiarity with tech… But the generation of platter hard drives circa 80-90s had to have the heads “parked” for transport or shut down, etc. there was the DOS command PARK and some had physical inserts.
Technology improved and the read heads became more stable and less prone to error as the 90s got underway, and the need to park hard drive heads became a relic of the past.
This is all way before SSD came into the picture. It’s hard to imagine there was a time where if you did not tell the hard drive read heads to move away from the platters, they would physically touch it and crash the drive. Pretty nuts when you think about it!
Fun fact: As of El Capitan from 10-ish years ago, Macs can no longer read floppies. They removed drivers from the kernel so some people upgraded and couldn’t read their disks anymore.
I got for for a 486SX project! They’re pretty sweet. push buttons on the front to switch between 99 virtual floppies. I had forgotten just how much you can’t do on 3.1, 95 and 98 without a standard floppy drive available.
Shopped for an 8" several years ago on eBay. $200 was too rich for my blood, just to play around. Looks like 5 1/4" is still cheap enough, but you won’t know if it works until you install. Doesn’t look like anyone is guaranteeing.
I can’t imagine what computers they’re using that still have floppy drives. How do they even get tech support for them?
There are USB and sata floppy drives. As for tech support? If it doesn’t work then warranty or replace, there isn’t much else you do with drives beyond that for modern drives either (unless I’ve missed something by not paying attention for years). I may be wrong on the last point, think some hard drives may be repairable but don’t think it was common for consumer level stuff. The worst case is probably a stuck disk that loses it’s protector then gets replaced, both the drive and the disk when copied over.
no not at all and all storage modules regardless of the medium will eventually lose the ability to read/write data until the total integrity of the drive is compromised resulting in total storage module failure
Hard drives used to be repairable, but back then it took two people just to lift one drive.
Oh I was thinking more about bad springs and arms than the platters themselves for that part (okay I’m not sure why or if I saw but I believe the old ones used springs in some function maybe the arms so quite old memory at this point don’t quote me), the moveable stuff that can wear out easier. A more specialized repair if possible, not the platters themselves though without losing the data.
If I remember right, I think what you are recalling are old skool hard drives where you had to park the heads! Some of them had inserts and things because there were indeed springs. I could be out to lunch but it feels like that’s what you’re remembering
Is that not all old ‘hard drives’ like before SSD ones or did I misrecall something? Like anything with a platter. Anything newer would be solid state right? Maybe I was more commercial drives, did have that in my background but it’s been a decade now heh.
It’s hard to say because I’m not sure of your age or familiarity with tech… But the generation of platter hard drives circa 80-90s had to have the heads “parked” for transport or shut down, etc. there was the DOS command PARK and some had physical inserts.
Technology improved and the read heads became more stable and less prone to error as the 90s got underway, and the need to park hard drive heads became a relic of the past.
This is all way before SSD came into the picture. It’s hard to imagine there was a time where if you did not tell the hard drive read heads to move away from the platters, they would physically touch it and crash the drive. Pretty nuts when you think about it!
They make USB peripheral floppy drives now for like $15. Its like the shittiest thumb drive ever.
Fun fact: As of El Capitan from 10-ish years ago, Macs can no longer read floppies. They removed drivers from the kernel so some people upgraded and couldn’t read their disks anymore.
Wait, do the USB diskette drives not present as standard Mass Storage block devices??
I’m afraid that it’s been years so I don’t remember the details.
I got for for a 486SX project! They’re pretty sweet. push buttons on the front to switch between 99 virtual floppies. I had forgotten just how much you can’t do on 3.1, 95 and 98 without a standard floppy drive available.
I’d bet that they don’t have USB ports on their prison computers at all.
I bet the Linux kernel still supports them
Every modern OS still supports it (excluding android, iOS and other toy OSes) and drives are still produced at scale.
Well I should buy one then. I have a bunch of old floppies. Wonder if I can still buy an 5-in
Shopped for an 8" several years ago on eBay. $200 was too rich for my blood, just to play around. Looks like 5 1/4" is still cheap enough, but you won’t know if it works until you install. Doesn’t look like anyone is guaranteeing.