Anyone have a 3.5" floppy drive on a modern computer?

[BoneSnapDeez]

Been thinking about installing one, mainly to play classic DOS games using DOSBox. Anyone else do this? I've heard the internal drives are more reliable than USB ones.

[D.D.D.]

I have yet to use DOSBOX but if the need be, I will use a USB floppy.
But hell no, I have not put a floppy drive in the last 3 machines I've built over the last 12 years.

[isiolia]

Last machine I put a floppy drive in was a Pentium 4, which I built 10-11 years ago. USB floppy drives have worked fine for me on the off chance I need to use one.

Are you talking about copying disks you have already with one? Otherwise I think the standard deal with DOSBox is just to work with disk images.

[Hatta]

You don't really need one. Most old 3.5 floppies are going to be corrupt by now (5.25 are much more reliable), so even if you have one you're going to have trouble reading disks. And yes, Dosbox works best with floppy images.

The only reason to use a floppy disk these days is to boot up an old PC that doesn't do USB boot. Handy for running 'sys C:' to make an unbootable 9x partition bootable. But that's about it.

[BoringSupreez]

I tried to put one in my PC a year ago, but realized that my PC didn't have the cords you're supposed to hook up to the drive inside. Too bad, because I have Civilization 1 on 3.5" floppy discs, and I'd like to be able to play it. I could always buy a USB drive, but I have like 3 internal drives lying around, and I would have preferred to use one of those.

[brunoafh]

I do, but I often run in to the problem that Hatta mentioned. I still have my pretty large collection of 3.5 and 5.5 floppy disc games. I really need to get an old Win 3.x PC sometime.

[J T]

I have a PC that's about 10 years old that has Windows 2000, a 3.5 drive, a CD-Rom drive, and a DVD-rom drive. I just use that if I need anythinng on a 3.5 (which I almost never do).

[Hatta]

I have a PC that's about 10 years old that has Windows 2000, a 3.5 drive, a CD-Rom drive, and a DVD-rom drive. I just use that if I need anythinng on a 3.5 (which I almost never do).

You should throw a couple of these in there and turn it into a nice little late 90s gaming rig.

[DinnerX]

Most old 3.5 floppies are going to be corrupt by now (5.25 are much more reliable), so even if you have one you're going to have trouble reading disks.

3.5 are the newer, smaller, more robust, reliable ones. 5.25 had flimsy shells and didn't even cover the read slot.

Don't ever run anything off a floppy these days. Make an image, back it up to a cd, and store the floppy away. I don't have a USB floppy drive so I use an old pc to do this.

[Hatta]

3.5 are the newer, smaller, more robust, reliable ones. 5.25 had flimsy shells and didn't even cover the read slot.

Don't ever run anything off a floppy these days. Make an image, back it up to a cd, and store the floppy away. I don't have a USB floppy drive so I use an old pc to do this.

3.5" disks have their magnetic domains packed more tightly than on 5.25" disks. This leads to crosstalk between the domains, and eventually loss of data. 5.25 may be more resilient against physical damage, but in practice I have a lot better luck reading 20 year old 5.25" disks than I do 10 year old 3.5" disks.