Using a single diskette drive – Kreisen 3 8 6 X / X E User Manual

Page 69

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Chapter 1 describes how to use DISKCOPY to copy your

MS-DOS diskette. For more detailed information to make

backups of other diskettes, refer to Chapter 4 “Using MS-DOS

with your computer”.

It is best to put most of the programs and data files you use

regularly on the hard disk. Keep backup copies of all your

program files on diskettes, however, and regularly copy

important data files to diskettes as well.

Using a Single Diskette Drive

The operating system expects the computer to have at least
two diskette drives, and it displays prompts and messages
accordingly. If the computer has only one diskette drive, MS-DOS
treats the one drive like two logical drives. This helps you

perform operations that normally require two diskette drives.

Usually, MS-DOS recognizes the first diskette drive (the top

drive) as drive A and the second diskette drive as drive B.

If you have only one diskette drive, MS-DOS recognizes it as

both A and B.

For example, if you give a command to copy from A to B,
MS-DOS copies data from the diskette you place in the single

drive (A) to the computer’s memory. Then MS-DOS

automatically prompts you to insert another diskette in the

same drive, which it now identifies as drive B. It copies the

data from memory to the new diskette. When the copying is

complete, MS-DOS identifies the drive as drive A again, and

you see a prompt to insert the original diskette into drive A.

You can load the operating system and application programs

from the hard disk, create and store your data there, and use

the diskette drive just for copying data to and from diskettes.

3-16

Using Your Computer

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