Disk Drives
My Computer
In this lesson, you will learn:
- About My Computer
- Explore and Browse Drives
- Checking Drive Space on your Disks
- Viewing and Changing Drive Settings
About My Computer
To open My Computer there are three main ways.
- Double Click My Computer on the Desktop. My Computer opens two panes. The pane on the right lists your drives.
- Click on Start > My Computer. My Computer opens two panes. The pane on the right lists your drives.
- Open Windows Explorer. Explorer shows a view of the file system starting with the selected folder. Choose My Computer from the list.
Explore and Browse Drives
Now we look at some features and options for working with drive objects in My Computer. Click on the Folders Button on the toolbar. Scroll through the drive and folder tree in the left window pane to locate the drive C: object and then right click on it.
You'll see a disk drive menu list with options listed below. These will be different depending on your operating system. This shows Windows XP. Some of the options listed below are not always available, and are gArconed out if they don’t apply to the drive you selected.
Expand: If there is a plus sign next to the drive, Expand will show all of the folders or files in the right pane.
Explore: Starts Windows Explorer with the view of this drive.
Open: Opens a separate window for viewing the contents of the drive.
Search: Opens the Find Utility, which then helps you locate folders and files on the drive. This is discussed more in this chapter
Backup: Makes a backup copy of the disk in a special file located in either another drive or a tape or Zip Drive.
Copy Disk: Makes an exact copy of the disk. Used mainly to copy floppy disks.
Format: Opens a dialog box so you can initialize diskettes and hard drives for use on your computer. Be careful not to format your hard drive accidentally, as this operation erases all files. This utility is used mainly to format floppy disks.
Create a Shortcut: Creates a shortcut on the desktop.
Properties: Displays the Properties dialog box so you can view and change information and settings for the drive. See the section "Viewing and Changing Drive Settings".
If there is a network drive or a removable media drive, the following options are available.
Disconnect: If your system is connected to a network, you may see drive icons for drives that are located on remote network servers. This option will appear on the menu of network drive icons so you can disconnect the drive.
Sharing: Opens the Sharing dialog box so you can make this drive accessible to other people whose computers are connected to your computer. You'll see this only if you are on a network.
Eject: This option ejects a removable disk so you can insert another disk. It is gArconed out if the disk is not removable.
Lock: This option locks a removable media disk. It is gArconed out if the disk is not removable.
Copy Disk: Copies the information from one disk to another, usually another floppy disk.
Checking Drive Space with My Computer
In My Computer, point to the disk you want to check. The total disk capacity and the amount of free space will appear as a tool tip. Also, if the status bar is visible, the amount of free space appears in the status bar at the bottom of the window.
Screen tip: Point to the drive and wait.
Pie Graph: Given in percent used and percent free.
Status bar: To view the Status Bar, on the View menu select Status Bar.
If you cannot see the free space, drag the right side of the window to enlarge it.
It is importantto kn ow how much space is left on your drive. If you try to copy or move a file when the disk is full you get an error message. But worse is when you copy multiple files and the operation fails suddenly with a "Disk Full" message! What to do? Are the files that were in process suddenly gone because they were'half way' and deleted from the source but no room on the destination?
The answer is that it depends on the type of drive: hard drive or floppy. For a Floppy Drive (A:) the answer is no. By examining the message, you see that there is an option to continue. Simply remove the full floppy and insert another and press'Continue'.
Modern Operating Systems from Window 98 on handle things gracefully and warn you with a Dialog Box that informs you that the disk space is getting low. As the disk fills to where there is less than 100 Mb of space left, a dialog box on the lower right(in the Taskbar) warns that space is getting low. There are three warnings, and the fouth is a STOP!! Message that prompts for a retry, giving time to either remove files through disk management (covered later) or moving files off of the drive to make room. You have the option to'Retry', which will continue the operation where it left off.
Viewing and Changing Drive Settings
Right click the drive A: object again and choose'Properties' on the menu.
From this dialog box in the 'General' Tab, you can change the name of the disk in the floppy A: drive by typing a new name in the Label field and clicking the OK Button. In the lower half of the dialog box,you can see how much disk space, how much is in use, and how much is still available. We will cover the other utilities in another Lesson. For now, simply click the 'General' Tab again then click Cancel to return to My Computer.
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