Caring for Diskettes and Diskette Drives

Follow these basic precautions to protect your diskettes and avoid losing data:

Cl Remove all diskettes before you turn off the computer.

If you have a diskette that contains data you don’t want to accidentally write over or erase, be sure you write-protect it. This is especially important for your operating system and application program diskettes. See “Write- protecting Diskettes,” below, for more details.

Cl Do not remove a diskette from the diskette drive or reset or turn off the computer while the drive light is on. This light indicates that the computer is copying data to or from a diskette. If you interrupt this process, you can destroy data.

Keep diskettes in a moderate environment. Don’t leave them sitting in the sun or in extreme cold or heat because this can destroy

the data.

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0Keep diskettes away from dust and dirt. Small particles of dust or dirt can scratch the magnetic surface, destroy data, and ruin the read/write heads in a diskette drive.

Keep diskettes away from magnetic fields, such as those generated by electrical appliances, telephones, and loudspeakers. (Diskettes store information magnetically.)

1-10 Using Your Computer