Storage Media

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It's best to check your drives frequently and avoid filling a drive before you need to save an important file. To see how much space is available on your disk drive, follow these steps.

  1. Open the My Computer window. This window lists all the disk drives in your computer.
  2. Right-click on a disk drive. Select a disk drive by clicking it once with the mouse using the right mouse button. A pop-up menu will appear. Make sure the disk is in the drive before continuing.
  3. Select Properties. The disk's properties dialog box appears that lists, on the General tab, the amount of space used and the amount of space still available on that disk or drive.

Floppy Drive                                                                                                                          

  1. A floppy disk holds 1.44mb of data.

a.       You can easily fit many Word or Spreadsheet documents on a floppy disk.

b.      Do not however try to save graphic or other multimedia type documents to floppy disks.

c.       Do not use a floppy disk as your only backup of an important document.

d.      Floppy disks are not very reliable and can sometimes lose data.

  1. Formatting.

a.       Formatting is needed for a few different reasons:

                                 i.            To simply erase all data on a disk and create a “new” disk

                               ii.            To make a disk usable on a specific operating system

                              iii.            To fix a disk that gives you errors or other problems.

Formatting a floppy disk:

  1. Put the floppy disk in the disk drive.
  2. Right click once on the floppy disk icon on the desktop.
  3. Choose Format from the menu that appears.
  4. Check the capacity is 1.44Mb
  5. Click Start.
  6. When formatting is finished click close on the dialogue box.

Zip Drives

  1. There are three formats of Zip Drives:

a.       Zip 100

i)        Reads and writes to Zip 100 only.

b.      Zip 250

i)        Reads and writes to Zip 100 and Zip 250 disks.

c.       Zip 750

i)        Reads and writes to Zip 250 and Zip 750 disks. Only reads Zip 100 disks; will NOT write to Zip 100.

  1. Removing a stuck Zip disk:

a.       On Macs, remove the chrome cover plate in front of Zip drive:

i)        Locate a tiny hole next to eject button and insert paper clip.     

ii)       Disk should eject (if it doesn’t eject, try pressing harder).

iii)     If this did not work, restart the computer and press and hold the mouse button right after the startup chime. Keep holding it. It should force both the ZIP and CD drives to eject. This only works on Macs.

b.      On PCs, if the Zip disk won’t eject after pressing the eject button on the front of the drive:

i)        Shutdown the computer (don’t restart; you have to cut the power supply to the Zip drive in order for it to reset).

ii)       Restart the computer and eject the Zip disk.

DVD-ROM Drive

1)      The DVD-ROM drive can be used for two purposes

a)      For using software

i)        DVD-ROM software

ii)       CD-ROM software

b)      Viewing DVD movies

i)        A DVD can be inserted into this drive and played using the WinDVD software installed on all the PCs.

ii)       Headphones may be checked out to listen as you watch DVDs.

Burning a CD-R:

  1. Log into the computer. (B&C rows have CD-RW Drives)
  2. Insert CD into computer.
  3. Select "Create a CD using Roxio Easy CD Creator" from the menu that pops up after the CD loads.
  4. Check that you agree to the software terms and click remind me later for project registration.
  5. In Roxio's Select a Project screen, choose make a data CD using data CD project.

  1. In the Untitled CD Project window browse for the files you want to burn using the Select source files tab
  2. Select Files and click Add.    
  3. When you have added all files, click the red record button.
  4. Under the Record CD Setup window, click Start Recording.
  5. Wait for CD to burn then click OK. As long as there is still space left, more information can be burned to the same CD.

Burning a CDRW:

  1. Log into the computer.
  2. Insert CD-RW into the computer.
  3. Select Create a CD using Roxio Easy CD Creator from the menu that pops up after the CD loads.
  4. Check that you agree to the software terms and click Remind me later for project registration.
  5. In Roxio's Select a Project Screen, choose Make a data CD using DirectCD.
  6. In the DirectCD window, click Format CD.
  7. Type in a CD label name and click Start Format.
  8. Click OK to start formatting.
  9. When the CD-RW has finished formatting, click OK in the CD ready window.
  10. The CD-RW is now formatted and can be used just like a regular floppy disk with drag and drop capabilities.

Note:

Please be reminded that a DirectCD formatted CDRW will only work on computers that have DirectCD installed on it.