Using drive designators, The default drive – Epson 10020 User Manual

Page 62

Advertising
background image

Using Drive Designators

MS-DOS uses letters to identify the disk drives in your system.
If you have one diskette drive, it is known as drive A. If you

have two diskette drives, the top one is called drive A and the

bottom drive is B.

If you have a hard disk drive, MS-DOS identifies it as drive C,

even if you have only one diskette drive.

The Default Drive

At any given time, MS-DOS considers one disk drive to be the

default drive. The default drive is the one on which MS-DOS
executes your next command, unless you tell it to do otherwise.

For example, if the default drive is C, and you issue the DIR

(directory) command, MS-DOS lists the files stored on drive C.
if the default drive is A and you type WP and press Enter,

MS-DOS looks on drive A for a file called WP and executes

the instructions in that file.

The MS-DOS command prompt tells you which drive is the

current default. The command prompt consists of the drive

letter followed by a greater-than symbol. (Depending on how

your system has been set up, the command prompt may also

include additional information.) Thus, when you see

C>

displayed on your screen, you

know that the default

drive is C.

The command prompt also lets you know that MS-DOS is

ready to receive a command from you.

If you need to access a file or program on another drive, you

can either change the default drive or specify the other drive

when you give the command.

Using MS-DOS With Your Computer

3-3

Advertising