A+ 220-701 And 220-702 Ch12

Hard disk drives are the most important storage device used by a personal computer. Hard disk drives store the operating system (Windows, Linux, or others) and load it into the computer’s memory (RAM) at startup. Hard disk drives also store applications, system configuration files used by applications and the operating system, and data files created by the user.

Floppy disks are used primarily for backups of small amounts of data, for bootable diagnostic disks, and for the creation of bootable emergency disks with some versions of Windows.

SATA and PATA are the two correct answers, (ATA/IDE) is the 40-pin interface used by most CD and DVD drives and a few early Blu-ray drives. SATA is the seven-pin high-speed serial interface used by late-model high-performance DVD drives and most Blu-ray drives. PATA and SATA are also used by hard disks and some types of removable-media drives. IrDA is an infrared (IR) interface used for line-of-sight printing and data transport between some computers (mostly older laptops) and printers. USB (Universal Serial Bus) is used for almost all external devices, from printers and multifunction devices to hard disks, optical drives, and flash memory devices. Although some USB adapter cards feature a single internal port, that port is intended for use by drive-bay mounted USB hubs or card readers.

If you want to play music CDs through your sound card’s speakers, you might need to connect a CD audio patch cable. One end connects to the CD-ROM drive and the other end connects to the CD audio port on the sound card or motherboard. Older drives support a four-wire analog cable, whereas newer drives support both the four-wire analog and newer two-wire digital cable. If the power cable wasn’t connected, the drive wouldn’t have opened when you inserted the disc. CD-ROM drives normally don’t need drivers installed; they are installed automatically by Windows. However you might need a soundcard driver. If the CD was faulty, Windows Media Player would not have played the song, and you wouldn’t have seen the song title or the elapsed time of the song.

USB flash memory drives have largely replaced floppy drives for transfers of data between systems or for running utility programs. USB flash memory drives, like flash memory cards, use flash memory, a type of memory that retains information without a continuous flow of electricity.

Hard disk drives use one or more double-sided platters formed from rigid materials such as aluminum or glass. These platters are coated with a durable magnetic surface that is divided into sectors. Each sector contains 512 bytes of storage along with information about where the sector is located on the disk medium.

To install a flash card reader on Windows 2000, XP, or Vista, connect it to an available USB port. The system will automatically detect the reader, assign drive letters as required, and display a notification at the end of the installation process.

Floppy drive data cables that are reversed (pin 1 to pin 33) at either the floppy drive interface on the motherboard/floppy controller card or at the drive itself will cause the drive light to come on and stay on. To correct this, turn off the system, remove and reattach the data cable correctly, and restart the system.

Tape drives use various types of magnetic tape. Some tape drive mechanisms can be incorporated into autoloaders or tape libraries for large network backup and data retrieval. Tape drives are mostly used on servers but are still considered removable storage.

USB flash memory drives are preformatted with the FAT16 or FAT32 file system and are ready to use. Simply plug one into a USB port, and it is immediately assigned a drive letter. You can copy, modify, and delete information on a USB flash memory drive, just as with a hard disk or floppy drive.

Most external hard disks connect via the USB or IEEE-1394 ports, but some can connect to external SATA ports, or to the network via RJ45 External USB or IEEE-1394–based hard disks, are preformatted (typically with the FAT32 file system), and are ready to work. Plug in the drive, and it appears in My Computer or Windows Explorer. PCIe is an internal expansion bus used by video cards and other secondary adapter cards.

Zip drives have capacities of 100MB, 250MB, and 750MB due to the size limitations that go along with the rigid cartridges.