Need help *fast*

[Nikolas Britton]

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

>  
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>>[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Nikolas Britton
>>Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 7:08 PM
>>To: Broder Mizzérable
>>Cc: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
>>Subject: Re: Need help *fast*
>>
>>
>>Broder Mizzérable wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Hello there.. i'm switching to FreeBSD ' now '... i did try to use the
>>>floppy installation way. but it seems like all my floppy's are 50kb to
>>>small =/ ... so i was wondering .. is it possible to use a CD ' That
>>>does already has stuffs on it but still boot it and download FTP wise
>>>.. as you would do as on the floppy installation ... i do ask this cuz
>>>i dont have any free CD's atm ..
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>I'm not quite following what you mean? You tried the standard tools to
>>make the floppy's, like rawrite and dd? AND you did format these disk
>>before hand to check that they didn't have bad sectors?.... I have a big
>>box of floppy's that have been siting in the closet and every time I
>>need one I have to go through 20 or so bad ones that have bad sectors or
>>invalid media to find the one perfect one. floppy diskettes are junk
>>thats why we stopped using them.
>>
>>    
>>
>
>No, floppy diskettes are definitely not junk, there is nothing wrong
>with the medium except that it doesen't hold enough.
>
>I used to work at a large software developer, Symantec formerly Central
>Point Software (ie: PCTools)  The last floppy runs of PCTools had at
>least 20 5.25 diskettes and about 15 3.5 floppies and Central Point
>did their own duplicating.  There was no way in hell that floppies
>that were anywhere near as bad as you imply could have been used for
>commercial duplication, the reject rate would have been too high.
>
>The problem today is that the floppy diskettes you buy in the
>store today are not manufactured under the high tolerances that
>they are supposed to be, and the floppy disk drives are also
>slopped together.  I don't know how the commercial duplicators
>do it if any are still doing floppy runs, probably none are
>anymore.  My guess is the few people still manufacturing them are
>using old ratty equipment that probably should have been retired
>years ago.
>
>Ted
>
>  
>
That is not want I meant to imply when I said "junk":

I was talking about the mediums tolerance to time or lack there of. Go 
find a batch of 5-10year old 1.44mb diskettes and try to format them and 
then you will under stand what I meant by "junk". And the central points 
pctools (I liked that shell replacement they put out for win3.x btw) 
diskettes, try to install it now and see what happens. I can not comment 
on new floppies because I have never bought any, I have a big ass box 
full of old ones.