copying data off floppy disks

I would like to know the easiest way to copy old floppy disks to DVDs? On the computer that I have a floppy drive, I only have a CD burner and not a DVD burner, so I would have to copy the floppy to the HD and then burn it to a CDRW. Then I would have to copy it on the HD of the the laptop with the DVD burner on it. It seems like there should be an easier way to do this. Would a flash drive make more sense or is there a free online service I could send the floppy data to and then burn it to a DVD from there?
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

How many disks do you need to copy? My reconing says that you can get 3300 floppys on 1 DVD or 540 on a CD. Thats a lot of floppys to warrent a DVD??? You mus have some serious patience to copy them all off.

 

Well, create a main folder on your hard drive for the floppies and then create a folder for each floppy if you have separate files on them or might not remember what they are then copy them all to CD from that and all DVD's can read CD's. I can't see anything easier than that. I believe there's either an option in XP or some 3rd party software that refreshes them as much as possible, no use in copying garbage over. Someone else may remember.

 

Do I need to use CDRWs? I only have CDRs. I am concerned that I won't be able to copy and use the information later on if I use the CDRs. Will it only be "read only" if I use the CDRs and then burn them to DVDs? Thanks for the clarification.

 

You could buy an external DVD burner to use on the floppy machine.
You could buy a flash drive/thumb drive/jump drive/usb drive.
But I would likely just burn them to CD. At this point any DVD drive also reads CDs as far a I know. The CDs (or even DVDs) themselves would be read only, but once you pulled the file off the CD/DVD it would be as editable as any other file.