Bad Block

A Block of data that is reported by the operating system as flawed. This in turn is based on reports of the drive itself through the interface API.

 

Bad Sector

A Sector on the surface of the drive which is reported by the operating system as flawed.

more...

BIOS

The acronym for "Basic Input/Output System". It is also known as CMOS. It defines the firmware area of a CPU system that controls operations through the system bus and to the attached cards and peripheral devices. It is located in special ROM (Read-Only Memory) or in an EEPROM (Electrically-Erasable Read-Only Memory) chip. The BIOS EEPROM is socketed on the motherboard and is relatively easy to locate. It's usually labelled with the name of the BIOS manufacturer. There are three BIOS manufacturers for PC's, Award, American Megatrends (AMI) or Phoenix. There is also often a version number or date on the chip stambed on it.

 

BIT

An abbreviation for binary digit, of which there are two symbols: 0 and 1. A bit is the basic data unit on most digital computers. A bit is usually considered as part of a data byte (or word), but bits may be used singly to control logical "on/off" functions. A "bit" is the fundamental unit of information and is often used loosely to refer to the electrical state of a circuit or the magnetization state of an object at a particular instance of time.

 

BLOCK

A group of bytes handled, stored, and accessed as a logical data unit, such as if it were an individual file record.

 

BPI

An acronym standing for "Bits Per Inch".

 

Buffer

A temporary data storage area that compensates for a difference in data transfer rates and/or data processing rates between the sender and receiver parts of a communication channel.

 

Buffer Segmentation

The data buffer is usully organized into two segments: the data buffer and the controller scratch pad. The data buffer is dynamically allocated for read and write data depending on the commands received over the bus. A variable number of read and write buffers may exist at the same time on the same disk-drive.

 

Bus

A collection of functionally parallel conductors that forms an interconnection between functional blocks in a digital device. It is seen as a length of parallel conductors that form a major interconnection route between the computer system CPU and its peripheral subsystems. Depending on its design, a bus may carry data, addresses, power, and more.

 

Byte

An ordered collection of bits treated as a unit. Most often, a byte is understood to consist of eight bits. One byte is necessary to define an alphanumeric character (or at least 7 bits).