Client took the cheap way out

[stiltman]

Against my advice they wanted me to get them a Everex GS28, but they needed a floppy


I called and emailed Everex and they said NO problem but you'll have to supply the FDD cable....WRONG! I had to mod the case with a drill so the FDD screws would work. Plus, they use the cheapest crap on the market (IMO) in these things


Then again, this looks to be a great service contract for the reasons above

[lumis]

what about an external floppy?

or a virtual floppy that is then transferred to a cd-rw?

[stiltman]

The client had about 200 floppies they used!!!!

I was against it my good man...but they insisted.
External?.....Remeber they took the cheap way

[redwudz]

I was lucky with my HP laptop. They had a USB floppy for free after rebates. Handy little bugger. I use it occasionally with my other computers without a fd drive. I quit installing floppy drives a year ago. Never missed them. If all else fails, I use the USB floppy. ; With a flash drive for backup.

[greymalkin]

floppies are sooooo unreliable! surely those people have been burned more than once by using floppies for their stuff..

[stiltman]

Actually, no. I told them the same thing. I suggested either using a jump drive or CD-RW....

They said that everyone they deal with uses floppies and they need to too, and they've never had a problem before.

This same client has never done a backup either

[QuaiBoy]

Good money for you. They'll pay in the long run. I know you said cheap, but all the business machines I build have a RAID 1 array of two drives and a backup device of some kind. They may not use the backup, but at least the array is there for hard drive failure.
Floppies aren't so bad. I have 10 year old Sonys and Maxells I still use once in a while. 3M/Imation are crap.

-Evan-

[stiltman]

they don't have any servers

[QuaiBoy]

So? RAID is an excellent idea for workstations as well. Adding an additional hard drive and basic controller costs less than $125. Much easier (and cheaper) than restoring data. But if your paid by the hour to clean up their messes (been there), more power to ya.

-Evan-

[stiltman]

So? RAID is an excellent idea for workstations as well. Adding an additional hard drive and basic controller costs less than $125. Much easier (and cheaper) than restoring data. But if your paid by the hour to clean up their messes (been there), more power to ya.

-Evan-

I guess you failed to read the subject line and my first post

I don't even run fault tolerance on my computer....I backup weekly though

[greymalkin]

maybe you can at least get them to use WinImage to make backup images of their floppies

[Soopafresh]

When the client says "I've never had a problem before", it basically means "end of discussion". I've gone as far as buying clients NICs, minihubs, RAM - anything under $100, just to save myself the aggravation, and then charge them back with a higher number of hours on the invoice.