Getting Diskettes Out of a PC

Getting disks out of a Windows PC

If you have a removable disk in your PC (examples of a removable disk are: CD-ROMs, DVDs, Zip disks, floppy disks, etc.) and you want to get it out, what do you do?

On the Mac, you drag the icon of that volume on top of the Trash icon and the Mac will eject is. Don't try and drag a volume from the My Computer window to the Recycle Bin -- I don't know what that will do but it won't be pretty! ;-)

To eject a volume from a Windows PC you simply press the tab / button near the slot where that disk comes out and then it comes out!

That's all!

Activity 1: Ejecting a volume

1) Insert a floppy disk into your Windows PC and wait a moment.

2) Open the My Computer icon on the desktop.

3) Double-click on the icon of the A Drive (that's the floppy disk drive). You'll get a directory window that will show the contents of the A Drive.

4) Close that A Drive Window (click in the upper right X box of that window).

5) Press the tab of the floppy disk and eject the floppy disk. It comes out!

6) Now Open My Computer and double-click on the A Drive. After a moment you'll get a message saying the A Drive is unavailable. Click Cancel. This is what Windows doesn't when you try and open a volume that doesn't have any media in it.

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Notes:

The Mac handles floppies and CDs and such differently than Windows: The Mac Finder (the Desktop on the Mac) is "aware" of what volumes are in various drives. The Windows system is kind of dumb about volumes in drives: it doesn't know anything is there unless you try and open it.

Some newer, USB based drives for the Macintosh begin to act like Windows: you have to push a button to eject the volume after the Finder has unmounted it.

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