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HP USB Floppy Drive Key

New Hewlett-Packard USB memory stick doubles as flash drive storage and virtual floppy disk drive.

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Computing | by C.K. Sample III | Fri Oct 24, 2008 8:20AM | 0 comments

The HP USB Floppy Drive Key (official HP product page) could be a very useful device if you own a Windows machine or if you work in IT offering support to people running Windows machines. Despite the fact that floppy drives are never seen on newer laptops these days and rarely seen on desktop computers, most computers require a floppy boot disk to perform certain maintenance and recovery tasks at the BIOS level. If you haven't needed a floppy disk in a long time, then this device probably isn't for you.

At $49 for a 256MB version and $79 for a 1GB version, the HP USB Floppy Drive Key will—with the flip of a switch—make your computer think that there is a floppy drive attached. All you have to do is load the files that would go into a boot floppy onto the floppy space on the key. The rest of the space on the device functions like a normal flash storage drive. See the conversations below for more details.

This story around the web:

Trusted sources:
external link HP USB Flash Drive Can Pretend To Be Floppy… [Gizmodo]
external link HP USB Floppy Drive Key [Ubergizmo]
external link HP USB Floppy Drive Key [SlashGear]
external link HP's USB Floppy Drive Key allows BIOS… [Boing Boing Gadgets]
external link USB Floppy Drive Key provides 2-in-1 storage… [CrunchGear]

Get more information on topics relating to this story:


Related company news:
HP, Hewlett Packard
Related glossary terms:
USB

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