Absolute Beginners Guide to Upgrading and Fixing Your PC

Along with a hard disk drive, most computers have a removable disk drive. Removable disks often called floppy disks or diskettes work much like hard disks except that they consist of thin sheets of a magnetic-tape like material instead of hard metallic platters.

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Because removable diskettes are more portable than hard disks, they're typically used to store data that's transported physically from PC to PC. And disks are useful, too, for storing backup copies of the data on your PC's hard disk.

The head in a diskette drive works just like the read/write head of a hard disk drive. The only difference is that the diskette drives aren't sealed from the elements, as are hard disk drives. Diskette drives, therefore, are even more susceptible to dirt, dust, and smoke than are their "hardier" cousins. If you seem to encounter more than a few read/write errors when you use different diskettes, the diskette drive itself might require realignment or even replacement.

Diskettes are susceptible to every ailment that can possibly befall a hard disk and then some. Because diskettes are portable, they can become damaged during transit. And because data is stored on diskettes magnetically, placing a diskette too close to a magnetic source (such as a stereo speaker, a ringing telephone, or your computer monitor) can erase its data.