In computers, active storage drives are automatically assigned a drive letter, starting with the letter A. The DOS operating system followed the drive letter with a colon, as in A: . Before flash memory devices, computers came with floppy disk drives for portable storage, so the system kept drive letters A and B to assign to these devices. This left C as the first available letter for the hard drive. This is how the hard drive became known as the C: drive.
C: indoor unit.
In the past, hard drives were small enough not to be partitioned; therefore, a single drive letter was all that was needed. The operating system has always been installed on the C: drive, and virtually all instructions for software and device drivers are also called by this name. Today is a different story.
Desktop and laptop computers often have hard drives in c: drives.
Today’s hard drives are typically several hundred gigabytes, or even a terabyte, and growing. Computer users often find that dividing large drives into multiple partitions or sections is helpful for their organization. In some cases, it is even required by the BIOS and/or the operating system of the computer. With each additional partition created on the drive, the system assigns a new sequential drive letter that it treats as a separate storage device. Therefore, a “C: drive” today can only refer to a very small part of a much larger disk containing several additional drive letters.
With the proliferation of computers came exploitation by malicious hackers, malware, viruses, and spyware. The C: drive is the common destination because it is the default drive for installing the operating system. For this reason, some security-seekers choose to create a small C: drive to store some DOS utilities and other files, but install the main operating system on the D: drive. While this certainly doesn’t guarantee the absence of hackers, viruses, or malware, it does automatically remove threats that target the drive as the location where the operating system will be found.
Before partitioning a new hard drive, it may be helpful to read about the different strategies people use to minimize risk, organize data, and suit different operating systems and purposes. Creating a C: drive that is drastically reduced in size and eliminates keystrokes is probably a smart choice. However, games made for DOS will require installation to the drive, so if you’re going to use them, make sure you allocate enough space. Also, some older software packages are automatically installed on the C: drive regardless of the location of the operating system.
Before flash memory devices, computers came with built-in floppy disk drives for portable storage.
