floppy disk drives almost a dead deal. the basics media/plastic/media spins at 360 rpm read/write...
TRANSCRIPT
Floppy Disk Drives
Almost a dead deal
The Basics
• Media/plastic/media
• Spins at 360 rpm
• Read/Write heads contact the disk surface – so don’t pull a floppy while the activity light is on
Formatting
• Electronic map for storing data/files on the disk• Concentric circles – tracks• Slice up tracks to get sectors; each sector holds
512 Bytes of data• Sets up four areas: boot record, File Allocation
Table (FAT), Root Directory and Data Area• Formatting is different for different devices (PCs,
Macs, Sewing Machines, …)
Mac and PC disks
• Mac drives have two motors: spindle and eject/insert
• Spindle motor is variable speed on Macs
• Macs can read and write PC disks
• PCs can’t read or write Mac disks
Types of Disks
• You can still find Double-sided, Double density (760 Bytes) disks – DD for short
• Most are Double-sided, High density – HD
• So much hassle over formatting that they come already formatted now
Installing Floppy Drives
• A: or B: - reserved by Windows for floppy drives
• Connect with 34-pin ribbon cable
Installing, cont.
• Red stripe is Pin 1
• Get the connector backwards, drive light will stay on, but drive won’t work. No harm to system.
• Be careful with power connector – get that upside down and you cook the drive
CMOS
• Should automatically detect drive
• Swap Floppy Device setting allows A to B swap – only if you have two drives
• Boot Up Floppy Seek – disable to save two seconds during POST
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Boot Sequence
• Where will I find an OS?
• I set CD first, then floppy then hard disk drive
• Often have to poke around in CMOS to find where you set this
Maintenance
• I keep a floppy drive cleaner disk
• Too much use, or too little use and drive heads will need cleaning
• Don’t poke around with a Q-Tip
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Troubleshooting
• Drive won’t read floppy disk
• Take disk to another computer
• Try another floppy disk (known good)
• Clean the read/write heads
• Replace the drive
USB floppy drives
• Popular for laptops
• Can’t boot from them – need USB drivers to load first
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Flash Memory Drives
• Thumb drive, Jump Drive, Flash drive
• Gaining in popularity daily
• Replacing Zip/floppy drives
• Is 4G still the upper limit?
CompactFlash (CF)
• Oldest, most complex and physically largest of memory cards.
• Can also get a microdrive in CF II form factor
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SmartMedia
• After CF
• Used in digital cameras for a while
• Almost extinct now
Secure Digital (SD)
• Newest on the block
• Most common format used today
• SD and SDIO formats – not interchangeable
• Mini and Micro show up in cellular phones