What is a CD Rom? What is a CD Rom used For?

What is a CD Rom? CD is short for compact disc!



Unlike the Floppy disk or the hard drive that are magnetic storage CD Roms are optic storage. They are read by a very fine laser beam. My children love to think of Star Wars when I say that! Floppy disk's lifespan can be very short, and to be honest can be very fragile! Keep in mind some floppy disks are better than others, but overall its scarey to depend on them. Magnetics can wear out quickly where as the CD rom? Its can take a licking and keep on ticking as the commerical says! Please don't take that to mean you need to abuse them. You don't want to do that either! CD Roms can wear out as well, but most of the time if you take care of them its measured in spans of 10 years or more!

Besides the durable nature of the CD rom lets look at storage space compared to Floppy disk. You can place an entire encylopedia on a CD rom. If you were to place that on Floppy disks? It would be more than 400 disks to have the same information. CD roms are cheap, durable, and hold LOADS of information!

I have a friend of mine that is intimidated by loading a CD rom into her computer. I remember asking her if she ever loaded a compact disk into her CD player, or a DVD into her DVD player? She gave me the 'your kidding me right' look as she rolled her eyes stare. (YEP I was being sarcastic at the time) I told her then you have ALL the technical expertise required to load discs into your computer CD or DVD Drive!

Be sure to handle the disc only by its edges so that you don't scratch the surface or get any dirt or finger prints on it.

If your drive has a open slot on the front of your computer for the CD rom slide the shiny side down (label on top) into the slot.

If your drive as a drive tray: Press the load/eject button on the front of the drive to open it. Then lay the disc down in the tray (shiny down, label up), and press the load/eject button again.

This would be an example of the label. You see the title or the name of the CD rom.

CD Rom label side UP placed in the CD ROm drive!



If you ever have an issue with playing a CD or DVD it may be a little dirty. To clean the CD Rom get a small lint-free cloth. Wipe the CD Rom from the center of the disc to the outside of the disk. Don't clean in a circular motion of the CD Rom. Make sure you wipe the shiny side, and not the side with the label (it has the writing on it). The computer reads the shinny side. If you get something sticky on it? Dampen your cloth with a little distilled water, and wipe as I mentioned above. Wait until your CD rom is completely DRY before inserting it to try to use it again.

What is the CD rom? What is a CD rom used for? The CD rom is used for storage basically, and most programs now days are CD roms. There are different types of CD roms as well, and we will go over that in another lesson.

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what is a CD rom, What is a CD rom used for, what is a CD rom drive,

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Where is CD Drive?

In previous lessons I was trying to explain the different types of disk drives. The last type of disk drive is called the CD Drive that you place CD Roms in. Let me show you a picture of the drive with a CD Rom in it.


For my computer the E drive is my CD rom drive. How did I figure that out?


You can either go to 'my computer' on your desktop, OR

Vista has renamed "My computer" to just 'Computer'.

Most of the time Windows Vista and XP don't have their version of 'my computer' on the desktop. If you have it on your desktop it could look similar to this:



If you see 'my computer' or 'computer' like pictured above on your desktop double click it at this point.


If you don't have one of those icons above (or similar) Hit your start button, and then go to computer (newer systems like Vista) or 'my computer' for other versions of windows. You should see a bunch of disk drives with letters. We are only concerned with those at this point. We will go over the other items you see later (if you have any).



Keep in mind your 'my computer' or 'computer' screen may be a little different then pictured, but the principle is the same.

You may see pictures of drives and letters. C Drive is normally your Hard Disk Drive. In some of the newer systems you will actually SEE a picture of a CD rom like above, and at times your drives will be named for you (windows, floppy, CDrom, DVD, etc). My CD rom drive says, "DVD RW DRIVE". At times some computers DON'T make it that easy for you to identify things! That will be in a future lesson about device manager.

We will look at the device manager in a future lesson, and you will see how your computer identifies your CD Rom among other things! Where is the CD Drive? For now check under your 'my computer' or 'computer' section on your computer.

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where is the cd drive, what is a cd rom drive,

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What is an Operating System?

What is an Operating System? The operating system of your computer is the is the MOST important program, and basically the backbone of your computer. We deal with Windows PC's on this blog, and your operating system can be called:

Windows Vista
Windows XP
Windows 2000
Windows ME
Windows 98
Windows 95

Those are some of the names that seem to be the most popular for operating systems software for your computer.

If you are reading about operating systems you may see people call them OS or O/S. Those are short abreviations for the word 'operating system'.

The purpose of an operating system is to organize and control hardware and software so that the device it lives in behaves in a flexible but predictable way.

Believe it or not operating systems have started to pop up in smaller computers as well. If you tinker with electronic devices, you're probably thrilled to know that operating systems can now be found on many of the devices we use every day, from cell phones to video games. The computers used in these devices have gotten so powerful that they can now actually run an operating system and applications. The computer in a typical cell phone is now more powerful than a desktop computer from 20 years ago. Hard to believe isn't it?

What is an operating system? You see it as Windows Vista, or one of the others titles I mentioned above. What does an operating system do? It provides basic instructions your computer needs to function.

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