Floppy Drives

Floppy drives are the slots on the front of your computer that you insert disks into, copy files to, and install programs from. Old ones are 5<" wide; these drives are big and ugly. They accept the big 5<" disks that can't hold very much data. Today, we laugh at a computer that still has one of these things. Almost all of us now have 3=" drives. These drives accept 3=" disks. These diskettes come in different densities. The old ones are single-sided and only hold 720 KB of data. The standard disks of today are called high-density. They usually hold 1.44 MB of data. The newest disks are called extended-capacity and they hold 2.88 MB.

Before a floppy diskette can be used, it must be formatted. This prepares the disk so that the drive can use it. To do this, type FORMAT A: at the DOS prompt (C:),. When Windows asks for a label, it wants to know what you want to call the disk.

Notes: You can't use a high-density disk in a low-density drive. Also, when formatting, make sure you type A:. Do not type any other drive, especially C:, otherwise you're in for trouble. Floppies are almost always A:. Also, disks can go bad. If a particular diskette has many errors, trash it.