Was this before actual hard disk drives became popular?
Real answer: yes, but also no. Depends on context.
Professionally, proper hard-disks go back before 8" floppies, let alone the 5.25" and their stiffer 3.5" counterparts. But those drives were comically oversized appliances (like rack-mount and even mini-fridge sized) compared to the stuff we have now.
For home-gamers, PCS have shipped with all three floppy formats shown above, at different times. Hard Drives start showing up for IBM PCs after they miniaturize to fit in the 5.25" drive bay form-factor. But all that’s just before the invention of the 3.5" floppy, and well ahead of it’s popularity as something that comes standard.
Real answer: yes, but also no. Depends on context.
Professionally, proper hard-disks go back before 8" floppies, let alone the 5.25" and their stiffer 3.5" counterparts. But those drives were comically oversized appliances (like rack-mount and even mini-fridge sized) compared to the stuff we have now.
For home-gamers, PCS have shipped with all three floppy formats shown above, at different times. Hard Drives start showing up for IBM PCs after they miniaturize to fit in the 5.25" drive bay form-factor. But all that’s just before the invention of the 3.5" floppy, and well ahead of it’s popularity as something that comes standard.