European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 14, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Here a what to do with your new hard disk drive Jerry Kidder s o your buddy got a hard disk and you be Only got a floppy. A Well to know that you re going to  hard disk too Don t we Youcheer through All the Cata logs and Magr a incs and if you read my column a month ago know All the terminology and Send off you r order. A couple of weeks inter  conies in the mail and you have a Brand spanking new hard disk drive. What happens now. If you did everything Rig hand have the right interface and hardware you open the Case plug in the interface or use the same one the floppy was attached to if it will support a Bard drive ,. Push in the drive lighten the screws put the Case Back on and off we go. Lets Sec now you have to format a floppy to make it work and a hard disk has a Platter so you  to format it too,.Well, almost Light for a hard disk there Are three Steps to making it work a. A a. A a a. A a a a a a a a a a a a. You were Light about the formatting but Tor a hard drive there Are two formats a physical formal and a logical format. A. A. Check your documentation and Sec if the hard drive has been Low level formatted physical and prepared for use. If it has to there should be in is auctions included to take care of that process. Some companies furnish a disk preparation program while others require you to use the debug program included with Dos. Follow the instructions and everything should go of. What you have done with the Low Leve format is to. Write sector track information to the disk just As on a floppy disk. But you have also written an interleave Factor. What a that its a ratio of physical disk sectors skipped for every sector actually written to when you write information to your disk. ,. Why most hard disks Are not fast enough to he Able to write information to each consecutive sector so it will write a sector and then skip a couple so the computer and the disk and system can  for the next Access. The amount of sectors skipped is the interleave Factor. A Factor of three Means that one in  sectors arc written per revolution of the Platter. This information is interesting Only when you have a method to change the Factor determining which is the optimal Factor for your system. A there Are programs that test your system and give you the coi Reet or. Most efficient readings. Done to mess with it though if you done to understand the process. A a a. A a a. For More information on this process and Oiler exciting hard disk information refer to one of the Many books available on the subject the Book i have taken to hand Fortis column is Quot managing your hard disk Quot by one corp. The next step in preparing your hard disk is to use ,. Included with Dos. Disk creates a Dos partition for hooting your hard disk and if you Are using a version of Dos prior to Var Sion 4.0, i t wit i allow you to Divide a drive bigger than 33 megabytes into More than one logical hard drive to allow Dos to . There Are a lot More possibilities but the column is too Short to really get into involved Dis. Cushions. Just believe me you need disk to create you Dos partition. A. The last step is to use the Dos format command. The format command logical will work exactly like the floppy format command. Use the  c so and you will write All that necessary information which Dos needs to keep track of files and data. The a part of the com a a a -. Mand will write the two hidden files of Dos to the drive. The a is to verify that every , written correctly. This is called transferring the system. A a ����.�. The lust step is to copy  fro your Dos Diskette to the hard disk. You now a c a bookable hard disk. If you have an at or at compatible Cor put her you will also have to change your setup to. Show that you have a c drive. A two More companies have responded to my queries about mail ordering for overseas custom a ers a a. /. A v a a a a a a a Quot a. True data products inc. 11.5 South main st., Uxbridge mass., 01569, Telephone 800-635-0300, it has been in business for eight years and will try to ship orders within three to five Days. Apo orders Are accepted but use your credit card american express costs extra or Send a Money order. U does no to Send a Catalon but. Its ads. Looked Good in magazines. Under Ware electronics 7761 West Kellogg Wichita Kan 67209 Telephone 800-442-1408. It is a family owned Enterprise that has been in business for More than. 17 years. It has an inter. Esting Catalon with quite a variety of products. It docs not mention Apo orders on its order forms so make sure that you stale that ii has to ship through the postal system,1 a a. A a we will spotlight Packard Bell co  next column and try to look at some of its products and policies. A a a a a a a a a a Jerry 8 Der is a stars amp stripes computer technician a ,. A. New and useful a Little vacuum Wood up with l using your regular vacuum cleaner to try to remove dust from. Those computer keyboards consider a Wacky vac a vacuum cleaner attach. Ment that gels in hard to reach places with ease. A. Wacky vac has 25 Small suction pipes with Sott a a filament brushes that suck up dust. It looks unusual.  spider hut it works Well. The unbreakable plastic attachment comes with two adapters one Lor major brands of \ Acu aim cleaners Theolet for the Dustbuster. Wacky vac is lightweight less than a Pound 1 and washable its available for $9.99, plus $2 for postage and handling from idea works 74-940 Highway 111. Suite 121, Indian Wells Calif. 92210. A. Lynn Simross welcomes readers1 comments and suggestions Lor future  and useful Quot columns. Because of volume she  respond individually to letters. Write to Lynn Simross con a a. Sumer column. Los Ang Clos times. Times Mirror Square los Angeles. Cali .-90053 a a a a a. Los Angeles times age a sunday april 14.-1991