While most of the work is done using the hard disk or drive and system and user data are stored on the hard drive, sometimes you may want to transfer or copy files to another PC. One convenient way to perform this provided that the file sizes are not too large is to use a floppy disk or diskette. Diskettes are very useful as a portable storage medium for small files.
Mounting and Using the Diskette
Before a diskette can be used, you have to perform an operation called “mounting” the diskette. This is to let the system know that you are going to use and access the diskette in the floppy drive.
To mount a diskette, move the mouse to an empty area on the Desktop and right-click it. From the pop-up menu select,
Disks --> Floppy
Click to view screen shot Fig 4.2 Mounting a Floppy.
(Under the new version of GNOME, disk access is done by right-clicking on the Computer icon on the desktop and selecting Floppy. See the Note at the top of this chapter.)
This will mount the floppy and add a floppy icon on the desktop. Double-clicking on this will list out the files and folders in the floppy under the File Manager.
Once you have successfully mounted the diskette and listed out its directory contents under the File Manager, you can treat it like another folder to read and write files and folders. However, you have to bear in mind some differences between the floppy diskette folder and the normal folder you have been working with.
The diskette has a very low storage capacity compared with the hard disk; a floppy diskette typically will have about 1.44 MB of storage capacity only. In contrast a hard disk will have at least a few hundred MB of storage capacity at the minimum!
If the write-protect tab on the diskette is enabled, then the diskette can be used for reading only, i.e. you can read the contents of the files on it only. You cannot write to the files, and so you cannot modify and/or create new files or folders.
After using the diskette, you will need to unmount it before you take off the diskette from the floppy drive. To unmount the diskette, right-click on the floppy icon on the desktop and select “Eject”. This will unmount the diskette and the floppy icon will disappear from the Desktop. Once this has happened, you can safely remove the diskette from the floppy drive.
Note:
It is important that you unmount the diskette before removing it from the floppy drive, especially if it has been mounted for writing. Failure to do so may result in incomplete data being written to the diskette and corruption of the file system on the diskette.
Formatting the Diskette
Before a diskette can be used it has to be “formatted” first. This will create the directory structures and other information needed for the system to keep track of where the data is stored on the diskette. You need to format a diskette once only. You can subsequently format it again after using it for some time but re-formating will result in the loss of the original contents of the diskette.
To format a diskette, you can use the floppy formatter selection from the Main Menu.
Main Menu --> System Tools --> Floppy Formatter
Click to view screen shot Fig 4.3 Floppy Formatter Dialog.
Choose the default floppy density of 1.44 MB and the DOS (FAT) file system type. This will enable the diskette to be read on almost all commonly used operating systems including Microsoft Windows.
Exercises
- Format a floppy diskette, mount it for read-write and copy the following files/folders found in the /etc directory to it: hosts, termcap, motd and rc.d.
- Unmount the diskette, mount it again and copy its entire contents to the folder tmp in your home directory (create this folder if it is not there). Unmount the diskette after the copying.
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Tutorial: Using Common Mass Storage Peripherals
1. The Floppy Disk Drive
2. The CD-ROM Drive
3. The USB Mass Storage Device
4. The CD-RW Drive
5. CD-Creator
6. GnomeToaster
