What is a Floppy Disk Drive?

A floppy disk driver is what is commonly called a floppy drive. It is a device that reads 3.5-inch or 5.25-inch floppy disks. Because of their small storage capacity, floppy disk drives are gradually being phased out.

The world's first 5.25-inch

There are three types of floppy disk drives:

1. 5.25-inch low-density floppy disk drives, which have long been eliminated;

2. 5.25-inch thin high-density floppy disk drive. This drive uses a floppy disk capacity of 1.2MB, which is obsolete;

3. 3.5-inch floppy disk drive. This drive uses a floppy disk capacity of 1.44MB (or 720KB, 2.88MB). The 3.5-inch floppy disk substrate is packaged in a hard plastic box with good resistance to crushing and dust. ^[1]

The floppy drive should pay attention to the following matters in daily use:

1. Do not use floppy disks with poor quality, physical damage, moisture, or magnetic layer loss, so as not to damage the floppy disk head; ^[2]

The floppy disk drive used to be an indispensable part of the computer. When necessary, it can start the computer for us. It can also use it to transfer and back up some relatively small files. Before introducing the floppy drive, let's get to know the floppy disk.

Floppy disks: The floppy disks you see are all 3.5 inches, usually referred to as 3 inches. The 3-inch floppy disk has a plastic case, which is relatively hard. Its role is to protect the disc inside. The disc is coated with a layer of magnetic material (such as iron oxide), which is the medium for recording data. There is a protective layer between the casing and the disc to prevent the casing from abrading the disc. The floppy disk provides a simple method of write protection. The 3-inch disk is implemented by a block. When it is pulled out, the square hole is opened for write protection. On the contrary, write protection is turned on, and data can be written to the file. Write protection is a very useful feature to prevent accidental write operations and to prevent viruses from invading it. In use, it is best to put some important floppy disks, such as program installation disks and data backup disks, in a write-protected state. The floppy disk is inserted into the drive anyway, and the 3 inch disk is generally not inserted incorrectly (it cannot be inserted if it is misplaced). The floppy disk capacity we usually use is 1.44M. The organization structure of the floppy disk: Let's take a look at the disk structure of the floppy disk: the floppy disk must be formatted before use. After completing this process, the disk is divided into several tracks, each track is divided into several sectors, The sector stores 512 bytes. A track is a set of concentric circles. A track has a width of a few tenths of a millimeter, and data is stored on these tracks. A 1.44M floppy disk, it has 80 tracks, each track has 18 sectors, and both sides can store data. We can calculate its capacity like this: 80 × 18 × 2 × 5121440K1.44M. The size of a file is expressed in bytes, but it is clustered as an allocation unit when it is stored, that is, a cluster cannot contain the contents of two files, that is, no matter how small a file is, even if it has only one byte, Once it occupies a cluster, other files can no longer be written to this cluster, which means that other unused space in this cluster is wasted. Each cluster consists of one or more sectors. For a floppy disk, there is only one sector in a cluster, that is, 512 bytes. For a hard disk, the size of the cluster is related to the size of the hard disk partition. The larger the partition capacity, the larger the size of each cluster. The greater the number of sectors. For a file containing 5 bytes, it takes up at least 512 bytes on a floppy disk and more on a hard disk. Backing up data with floppy disks is a good way. As long as they are done properly, they can be stored for 5-8 years. When using a floppy disk, you need to be careful: do not scratch the disk, the disk cannot be deformed, cannot be exposed to high temperatures, cannot be wet, and should not be near magnetic materials. ^[4]

Floppy disk drive: The floppy disk drive reads and writes to the floppy disk. Most of us use 3 inch floppy disk drives, which can read and write 1.44M 3-inch floppy disks. The main components of a floppy drive are: a control circuit board, a motor, a head positioner, and a head. The magnetic head is actually very small, with one on the top and one on the other. What we see is its slide rail. Its working process is as follows: The motor drives the disk of the floppy disk to rotate at a speed of about 300 revolutions per minute. The head positioner is a small stepping motor that is responsible for moving the head to the correct track and reading is performed by the head. Write operation. This is the case where a 3-inch disk is inserted into the floppy drive, its read and write holes are opened, and the magnetic head contacts the disk through this position. The floppy disk head contacts the magnetic disk during read and write operations, so it will be contaminated with dust. Over time, its operation may fail. If one day the floppy drive fails to read or write, do not rush to repair it first. This may be because the magnetic head is too dirty. A cleaning disk may solve the problem. The appearance of the cleaning disk is the same as that of a normal floppy disk, but inside it is a layer of cleaning film. Put a little special cleaning liquid on it, then insert the cleaning disk into the floppy drive, and then let the floppy drive read the disk. After a few attempts, the cleaning work is completed. After that, you need to wait for some time for the cleaning liquid on the head to evaporate. For people who work frequently with floppy drives, it is beneficial to clean the heads regularly. Installing a floppy drive is relatively simple, it has a power socket and a data interface. The data interface has 34 pins, which is a data cable connected to the floppy drive.