Drive Identification

Drive Identification

The capability of saving your data in one location and bringing it to another location is a luxury that can be taken for granted. That is until you don't have it.

Some of the drives that you will run in to at Free Geek we will discuss here. While much of this technology is obsolete, there are still enthusiasts out there who love this technology. And from time to time we will get an odd request for these devices.

The way that we have stored our electronic data over the years has changed a lot - from paper to tape to 8" Floppy disks to DVDs. In this lesson we would like you to familiarize yourself with these forms of data storage and the jargon that is related to them.

Some of the more common drives that you will see here at Free Geek are listed below.

5 1/4 Floppy drive
   *Front
   *Sides
   *Back
   *Write Medium Description

3 1/2 Floppy drive
   *Front
   *Sides
   *Back
   *Write Medium Description

DAT Tapes
   *Front
   *Sides
   *Back
   *Write Medium Description

Zip drive
   *Front
   *Sides
   *Back
   *Write Medium Description

CD Drive
   *Front
   *Sides
   *Back
   *Write Medium Description

CD R/RW Drive
   *Front
   *Sides
   *Back
   *Write Medium Description

DVD drive
   *Front
   *Sides
   *Back
   *Write Medium Description

DVD R/RW drive
   *Front
   *Sides
   *Back
   *Write Medium Description

Exercise

Check out the drives in Lesson Box D and make sure you can identify the types of CD and DVD drives from the front, especially whether they are recordable and/or rewritable. Also locate where the High Speed and Ultra Speed designations are placed.

CONTENTS OF BOX D

• CD read only CD Recordable/Rewritable
• CD Rewritable & High Speed
• CD Rewritable with speed numbers i.e. 16x10x40x
• DVD Rom + CD Rewritable & Ultra Speed
• DVD R/RW + CD R/RW combo
• Floppy drive 3.5" ZIP drive
• Floppy drive 5.25" and disc for it
• Dat Tape and tape for it