Computer Hardware Servicing NC II

Operating System
an operating system is a program that acts as an intermediary between a computer user and the computer hardware. is an interface between hardware and user; it is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the limited resources of the computer. The operating system acts as a host for applications that are run on the machine. As a host, one of the purposes of an operating system is to handle the details of the operation of the hardware.

A layer structure showing where the Operating System is located on generally used software systems on desktops

Common Contemporary Operating Systems

Mac OS Microsoft Windows MS Windows 95, MS Windows 98, MS Windows Me, MS Windows 2000, MS Windows XP, MS Windows Vista, MS Windows 7, MS Windows NT, MS Windows 2000 Server, MS Windows 2003 Server Linux Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, Mandriva, Debian BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) Solaris Unix and Unix-like Operating System

Basic Input Output System (BIOS)

also known as the System BIOS The BIOS is boot firmware, designed to be the first code run by a PC when powered on. The initial function of the BIOS is to identify, test, and initialize system devices such as the video display card, hard disk, and floppy disk and other hardware. This is to prepare the machine into a known state, so that software stored on compatible media can be loaded, executed, and given control of the PC. This process is known as booting, or booting up, which is short for bootstrapping.

Phoenix AwardBIOS CMOS (non-volatile memory) Setup utility on a standard PC

Hard Disk Drive (HDD)

A hard disk drive (often shortened as "hard disk" or "hard drive ), is a non-volatile storage device which stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating platters with magnetic surfaces.

File Size Conversion Table

Name Symbol
Binary Measure ment 2^10 2^20 Decimal Measure ment 10^3 10^6

Number of Bytes

Equal to

kilobyte megabyte

KB MB

1,024 1,048,576

1,024 bytes
1,024KB

gigabyte
terabyte petabyte

GB
TB PB

2^30
2^40 2^50

10^9
10^12 10^15

1,073,741,824
1,099,511,627,776 1,125,899,906,842,624

1,024MB
1,024GB 1,024TB

exabyte
zettabyte yottabyte

EB
ZB YB

2^60
2^70 2^80

10^18
10^21 10^24

1,152,921,504,606,846,976
1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424

1,024PB
1,024EB

1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 1,024ZB

File System
is a method for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them. File systems may use a data storage device such as a hard disk or CD-ROM and involve maintaining the physical location of the files

Common Windows File System

FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS

File Allocation Table (FAT32)

The FAT (File Allocation Table) file system originated in the late 1970s and early 1980s and was the file system supported by the MS-DOS operating system.
It was originally developed as a simple file system suitable for floppy disk drives less than 500K in size. Over time, it has been enhanced to support larger media. Currently there are three FAT file system types: FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32. The basic difference in these FAT sub types, and the reason for the names, is the size, in bits, of the entries in the actual FAT structure on the disk.

New Technology File System (NTFS)

The NTFS File System was created in the early 1990s. Microsoft wanted to create a highquality, high performance, reliable and secure operating system. All the operating systems Microsoft had before Windows XP or Windows 2000 had the power or features needed for Microsoft to take on UNIX or other serious operating systems.

New Technology File System (NTFS)

An advanced file system that provides performance, security, reliability, and advanced features that are not found in any version of FAT.

NTFS
A computer running Windows XP, Windows 2000 or later can access files on an NTFS partition. 2. NTFS is compatible with FAT32. 3. Recommended minimum volume size is approximately 10 megabytes (MB).
1. 1.

FAT32
A computer running Windows ME, Windows 98, Windows 95 and below cannot access files on an NTFS partition. 2. FAT32 is not compatible with NTFS. 3. Volumes from 512MB to 2TB.

NTFS
4. Volumes much larger

FAT32
4. In Windows XP, you can

than 2Terabytes (TB) are possible. 5. File size limited only by size of volume.

format FAT32 volume up to 32GB only. 5. Maximum file size is 4GB.

NTFS was designed to meet a number of specific goals. In no particular order, the most important of these are: Reliability - NTFS implements specific features to allow important transactions to be completed as an integral whole, to avoid data loss, and to improve fault tolerance. Security and Access Control - One of the most important advantages that users gain when choosing the NTFS file system over older file systems such as FAT, is greater control over who can perform what sorts of operations on various data within the file system. Storage Efficiency - Again, at the time that NTFS was developed, most PCs used FAT16, which results in significant disk space due to slack. NTFS avoids this problem by using a very different method of allocating space to files than FAT does.

Breaking Size Barriers - Unlike FAT where maximum partition was up to 4GB, NTFS allows larger partition size of 16 exabyte(1018).
Long File Name - NTFS allows file names up to 255 characters instead of 8.3 characters limitation of conventional FAT.