Personal Computer User Manual

Using Two Diskette Drives

If you have two diskette drives, you can use the top drive (A)

for loading the operating system and application programs and

the second drive (B) for creating data. If you have a hard disk,

you will probably need the diskette drives just to copy files to

and from the hard disk and to copy diskettes.

Note

You can load MS-DOS

from an application program diskette

that diskette contains the MS-DOS system files.

Using a Hard Disk Drive

Working with a hard disk is similar to working with a diskette.

However, the hard disk provides several advantages:

A 40MB hard disk can store as much data as approximately

30 1.44MB diskettes, and a 100MB hard disk can store as

much data as approximately 70 1.44MB diskettes.

Q Your computer can perform all disk-related operations

faster.

You can store frequently used programs and data files on the

hard disk, eliminating the inconvenience of swapping

diskettes to access different files.

The added storage capacity makes it easy to move back and

forth between different programs and data files. However,

because it is so easy to add programs and files to your hard disk,

you may find yourself trying to organize hundreds of files.

MS-DOS lets you keep related files together in directories and

subdirectories so they are easy to find and use. See Chapter 4 for

instructions on how to use directories.

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Using the Equity 386SX