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Magnetic Disks
Backing up Text/Data Files

Journalist 1 & C - Advanced manual for Journalism and other reporting practices
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Figure 1-22.—Internal hard disk drive mounted on disk drive chassis. Floppy disk drives are easy to spot because all you have to look for is the door of the drive–the open slot in which you insert the diskette. But hard disk drives are normally sealed units that can be tucked away inside the system unit. Why are hard disks so popular? Hard disk drives provide   you   with   many   time-saving   features   not available or possible with the traditional floppy disk drives.  These  include  increased  access  speeds,  greater storage capacity (up to 500 megabytes [MB] of storage) and overall convenience. Regardless of whether your microcomputer has a hard disk drive housed within the system unit or external to it, you need not bother having to  search  through  file  boxes  filled  with  diskettes. Working with a hard disk is much easier because you can quickly end one program and start another, all through  the  operating  system.  There  is  no  need  to manually open, close, file away or find anything. There is no more time-consuming initialization or rebooting (system  restart)  from  the  floppy  disk  drive,  which involves  finding  and  loading  a  program  diskette,  finding and  loading  the  applications  diskette  and  finally  getting down  to  work. Hard disk units consist of rigid metal platters that are tiered or stacked. In most cases, the disks themselves are not removable, and for this reason, they can be hermetically  sealed  in  the  storage  unit  along  with  the access  mechanism  that  contains  the  read-write  heads. Because this type of disk drive is completely sealed and free from air contamination, the read-write heads can be positioned  to  within  20  millionths  of  an  inch  from  the surface of the disk. This also allows the disk to be rotated at a high rate of speed—typically, 3600 revolutions per minute. Hard disks come in the same sizes as floppy disks, with 3 1/2 inches being the most popular because the read-write heads have shorter distances to move. Hard disk storage capacities range from five to 500 megabytes, with the majority in the 20 to 120 megabyte range. PRINTERS Most printers you are likely to use while working on microcomputers are the low-speed varieties. They are able to print text at rates of 200 to 800 characters per second and usually output this information one character at a time. After close examination, you will find that basically the only major difference between printers designed  for  microcomputers  and  those  used  on  larger mainframe systems is their size and the speed at which they print. Other than that, they are much alike in terms of  setup,  operation  and  operational  features. Low-speed printers, like high-speed printers, are either  impact  or  nonimpact.  At  least  six  printing technologies are used to produce hundreds of micro- computer printer models. These technologies include daisy-wheel (which prints solid characters), dot matrix (which forms characters using a series of dots), xero- graphic,  electrostatic,  electrosensitive,  electrothermal, ink jet and laser. Many  low-speed  printers  can  print  subscripts  and superscripts,  print  in  several  different  colors,  print graphic material and output text in several different fonts. Either a friction feed (for handling single sheets of paper) or an adjustable tractor feed (for handling continuous  forms)  are  standard  on  these  printers.  Some even have both. SOFTWARE Depending on the needs of the users, the software will  vary  from  command  to  command.  Journalists  will become  most  familiar  with  one  of  several  word processing software packages available on the market. Disk Operating System (DOS) Regardless  of  your  word  processing  software  of choice, you will need a disk operating system (DOS) to make it work. DOS will be the first program you need to know and understand because you must install it before you install other programs. DOS manages the operation of the system. If your system has a hard disk, you will install DOS onto it. The first step will be to partition the hard disk; that is, identify the hard disk to DOS and create a partition  for  DOS.  Next,  you  will  format  the  hard 1-53







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