Actually, if downtime is an issue for you, you would have an entire spare machine ready to go. Same NICs, same configurations on it, spare floppies, and once in a while you would swap the systems to make sure the spare machine (and spare disks) was really still a good spare machine (I got a long, sad story on that one!)
Of course, don't forget spare links, spare routers, spare EVERYTHING that you can't live without. It can all break. Plan for it, don't hope it won't happen. Really ought to buy a spare activating dongle, too, if downtime is a serious issue. Yeah, I know that isn't cheap, but two copys of GB are still cheaper than one of most anything else. A few tips on floppies, I've mentioned before (one of the preceeding times this discussion came up), but probably worth mentioning again... 1) As someone else mentioned, tape over, in fact seal all around the floppy drive. Dust sneaking through the crack around the drive and the case can do as much dammage as dust coming in the disk slot. Don't tape it up so badly you can't pop the disk out to make a NEW backup when you change something, of course. 2) Cleaning kits. I keep a $5 cleaning kit in my van with me. I don't recommend them for routine use (as the manufacturers of the kits do..or did. The $20 cleaning kit kinda died out with the advent of the $15 drive), but I have found these cleaning kits will turn probably 70% or so of "failed" floppy drives into "good" floppy drives in a minute or so. Good thing to have in the tool kit. 3) Use recycled floppies from master disks. Bizzare as it sounds, that old, free AOL diskette is more reliable than a brand new, name brand diskette you bought at the office supply store. Why? Because the disk manufacturers can get away with selling consumers garbage (when is the last time YOU claimed your "free replacement disk" from a company offering a lifetime warranty?), but they can't get away with selling SOFTWARE PUBLISHERS disks where one out of 10 was bad. Think about it -- MS Office 4.3 (31 disks, origionally!) would never have been successfully installed by ANYONE from floppy if the disks Microsoft bought were as bad as the ones you and I are stuck with -- and yet, install it did. All over the place... Guess what? They are STILL good disks. Use 'em, don't toss 'em! Amazingly enough, diskettes CAN be pretty reliable, if you can only find a good media source. Since I started reusing old master disks, I've actually become, well, pleased with floppy durability. I still wouldn't recommend them as your only storage for anything, but they work. I was told about this by guy who sells media to industry. I was absolutely floored by it -- both at the thought that the disk makers were knowingly selling consumers garbage and also that I had also really known this all along, I just didn't believe my own experience. I was getting one to two bad floppies out of box after box of 10 Sony disks, and similar results with other brands. The old master disks I reformatted never seemed to die, however, no matter how much I used them. I know it sounds cracked. Try it, though. Nick. "Michael W. Burden" wrote: > ------------------------------------------------------------- > If we're talking about a floppy drive failure, wouldn't you > be putting the new floppy drive into your existing GNAT Box?? > (Ditto for a media failure) > > Mike Burden > Lynk Systems > (616)532-4985 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of > > Christopher Congdon > > Sent: Friday, July 07, 2000 4:52 PM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: RE: no floppies? > > > > > > Of course, some of us would like to use something more reliable > > than both a > > hard drive or a floppy drive. I own a SanDisk 20MB flash drive (IDE) and > > several 16MB Disk On Modules (also IDE). Much more reliable than > > HD or FDD. > > Of course, your rapid fix argument is a good one though. Of > > course, you have > > to slot that floppy in a machine that has the same NIC(s) as your GnatBox. > > And if you've used any ISA NICs, you have to make sure that the > > settings are > > the same. Less than 10 minutes downtime? Maybe.... > > <and lots more snipped> -- http://www.holland-consulting.com/
