Using Drive Designators

MS-DOS uses letters to identify the disk drives in your system. If you have one diskette drive, it is known as drive A. If you have two diskette drives, the top one is called drive A and the bottom drive is B.

If you have a hard disk drive, MS-DOS identifies it as drive C, even if you have only one diskette drive.

The Default Drive

At any given time, MS-DOS considers one disk drive to be the default drive. The default drive is the one on which MS-DOS executes your next command, unless you tell it to do otherwise. For example, if the default drive is C, and you issue the DIR (directory) command, MS-DOS lists the files stored on drive C. if the default drive is A and you type WP and press Enter, MS-DOS looks on drive A for a file called WP and executes the instructions in that file.

The MS-DOS command prompt tells you which drive is the current default. The command prompt consists of the drive letter followed by a greater-than symbol. (Depending on how your system has been set up, the command prompt may also include additional information.) Thus, when you see C> displayed on your screen, you know that the default drive is C. The command prompt also lets you know that MS-DOS is ready to receive a command from you.

If you need to access a file or program on another drive, you can either change the default drive or specify the other drive when you give the command.

Using MS-DOS With Your Computer 3-3