hello ,

for eg: let us say i save a file to hard disk.

what activities takes place behind the scenes from the time i initiate the saving till the time the data gets saved on to hard disk.

thanx to everyone.

I don't think much happens in saving a file. You say save, the CPU follows software instructions to locate a storage site on the drive, instructions are sent to the drive to move the drive armature over the disk magnetically encoding the file in the designated location and it is logged in the system memory on the drive so the file can be found again and not written over by another file. If you need to know the detailed software code for it, it would depend on which OS you are asking about and it is a lot more technical than I can answer. Why do you want to know??

Budfred

Hello Budfred,

thanx for ur response.

i do not need the detailed code for any.

what i want is steps involved in the same.

for eg: i save a file in word.

steps could be as follows :

word application passes data to os - os sends data to hdd - in hdd initially it is received in hdd cache - data is encoded - free tracks and sectors are selected - actuator of hdd moves - places it beneath the free sector - drive sends electrical pulses to head - pulses produce a magnetic field that alters the magnetic surface of the platter. The variations recorded there now represent the data.

i am not sure whther any info is missed in between

look forward to ur response.

I think you included an extra step in that I don't think the file goes to the hard drive cache and I think you left out the involvement of the CPU, but you seem to have the general idea. The process probably varies a little bit depending on the programs and OS involved, but that seems to be pretty much the way it goes.

You might want to do a search on PCGuide to see what you can find there, it is probably more detailed than anything I might be able to tell you. The link to the main page is at the bottom of every forum page.

Budfred

hello budfred,

thanx for ur confirmation.

on similar lines could u tell me what happens from the time i type a charcater on keyboard and till the time character appears on screen and stays put.

ur suggestions would be most welcome.

I saw your thread asking that question too, but the answers are so similar that I didn't respond.

As I understand it, the stimulus of the key hitting a sensor pad under your key is electronically transmitted to your CPU which sends it to the software as a series of 1s and 0s representing that key in code. The software interprets that code and sends a signal to your video card which send a signal to your monitor instructing it to send the pattern represented by that code to the screen and maintain it as long as you want it there. The instructions in the video drivers allow it to change location on the screen as needed.

That is as detailed as I can get and may not be entirely accurate even at that, but unless you are trying to build a computer from the ground up, you probably don't need much more detail. If you do want to build it from the ground up, you need a lot more detail than I could possibly give you.

Budfred