Total Number Of Sectors On Every Floppy example essay topic

How Magnets Affect Computer Disks BackGround One of the most commonly used Computer data storage d mediums is a Computer Disk or a Floppy. These are used in everyday life, in either our workplace or at home. These disks have many purposes, such as: Storing data: Floppies can be used to store software / data for short of time, Transferring data: Floppies are used to transfer / copy data from one computer to another. Hiding data: Floppies are also sometimes used to hide sensitive or confidential data, because of the disk's small size it can be hidden very easily.

Advertising: Because floppies are cheap to buy, they are used to advertise different types of software, such as: Software for the internet advertised on America Online Floppies. Floppies are also considered to be very sensitive data storage mediums. These Disks have numerous advantages and disadvantages. Even though floppies a reused so commonly they are also not very dependable. They have numerous conditions under which they should normally be kept. For example: the disk inside the hard cover of the disk must NEVER be touched, the magnetic disk inside, must be protected by the metallic sliding shield, the disk must always be within the temperature of 50^0 to 140^0 Fahrenheit and the disk must never be bought near a magnet!

(3 M Diskettes) There are many such hazards to computer disks. Problems caused by magnets are very common. A floppy can be damaged unknowingly if it is kept near a magnet, that may be in the open or inside any device, such as a speaker phone in computer speakers or stereo or a telephone. And becase of the common use of magnets in everyday life, more and more floppies are damaged everyday. Even though protective coverings against magnets and other electrical hazards, are available for floppies, they are not used very commonly.

Therefore, floppies are not a very safe media for storage, even though they are convenient. Some of the most commonly used diskettes are by 3 M and Sony and other such companies. The floppies are sold in boxes with instructions on them to not to bring floppies near magnets and other instructions of DOs and DONT's. These instructions must always be followed.

Floppies have different capacities such as 720 KB (kilobytes) and 1.44 MB (megabytes). Floppies also have different sizes, 3.5' and 5.25'. The most commonly used floppy is usually 3.5'. It is not soft and cannot be bent, whereas a 5.25' disk is soft and can be bent!

A floppy is a round, flat piece of Mylar coated with ferric oxide, a containing tiny particles capable of holding a magnetic field, and encased in a protective plastic cover, the disk jacket. Data is stored on a floppy disk by the disk drive's read / write head, which alters the magnetic orientation of the particles. Orientation in one direction represents binary 1; orientation in the other, binary 0. Purpose The purpose of my experiment was to test Floppies to see how delicate they are near magnets and how much damage can be done to the disks and to the software on it bye a single magnet. I also hope my project will help others to be aware that computer disks are very delicate and sensitive to temperature, weather, magnets... etc. Hypothesis When the magnets are bought near the disk, the disk should be damaged internally along with the software in it.

And the weakest magnet should cause the least damage and the strongest magnet should cause the most damage. Experimentation Material: Four 3.5' Floppy Diskettes. Four different Magnets One Personal Home ComputerPrinterSoftware: Windows 95 Norton Disk Doctor Dos (Ver 4.00. 950) Procedure: Every Floppy Diskette has 2874 sectors.

This was calculated by dividing the total number of bytes on a disk by the number of bytes every sector occupies. There is a total of 1,457,664 bytes on every Floppy, and every sector occupies 512 bytes. Therefore, 512 / 1457664 is 2874, ie. the total number of sectors on every Floppy. First, I obtained the four 3.5' IBM formatted floppy diskettes (Highland"a). Next I obtained the four different magnets of different strengths and sizes and tested and verified their strengths by bringing iron filings near each of them and observing how much of iron filings each one of them attracted and then noting which magnet was the strongest and which was the weakest in order. Then Tested each of the disks for existing errors by using a program called Norton Disk Doctor (ND) which has the ability to detect and fix error on a disk.

There were no error on any of the four disks. Next, I decided to hold the magnets near the disks for the experimentation for about 30 seconds at about the same place on the disk. I did so on all of the four disk. Then, I brought the disks home and tested all four of the disks in a disk testing and repair program called Norton Disk Doctor. I notices that each one of the disks suffered damage. Every one of the four disk was numbered.

The Floppy with the weakest magnet was 'Disk 1' and the Floppy with the strongest magnet was 'Disk 4'respectively. This was done to avoid possible confusion in the disks. Result Every Floppy Diskette has 2874 sectors. After every Floppy had been tested, I noted all the results. The results were as follows: Disk 1: Total Bytes on Disk: 1,457,664 Total Bytes in Bad Sectors: 3584 Total Numberof Sectors: 2874 Total Number of Bad Sectors: 7 Total Number of Good Sectors: 2867 Disk 2: Total Bytes on Disk: 1,457,664 Total Bytes in Bad Sectors: 5632 Total Numberof Sectors: 2874 Total Number of Bad Sectors: 11 Total Number of Good Sectors: 2863 Disk 3: Total Bytes on Disk: 1,457,664 Total Bytes in Bad Sectors: 15360 Total Numberof Sectors: 2874 Total Number of Bad Sectors: 30 Total Number of Good Sectors: 2844 Disk 4: Total Bytes on Disk: 1,457,664 Total Bytes in Bad Sectors: 19968 Total Numberof Sectors: 2874 Total Number of Bad Sectors: 39 Total Number of Good Sectors: 2833 After the testing, I discovered that even the smallest of the Magnets could cause bad sectors and damage both, the disk and the data on the disk. Eventhough t the damage wasn't very big, it was big enough to corrupt any program on the disk, becase every part of the present file would be necessary for its correct use and any bad sectors would almost destroy the file and make it worthless.

Conclusion: In conclusion, this experiment proved that floppies are very sensitive to magnets and should not be brought near them at anytime. When the magnets were brought near the floppies, the disks were damaged and the weakest magnet caused the least damage and the strongest magnet caused the most damage.