Hello. These look like really nice forums I don’t know if I am posting this in the right place but here goes anyway. When programs are loaded from the hard disk to the main memory do they go through the CPU or do they go direct to the main memory? Second question: is there a difference between disc and disk? Someone told me that disc has been used for floppy disks and not hard disks.
I think the data goes through the southbridge to the northbridge then on to the ram. The cpu must play some roll in the transfer but the ram isnt necessarily "on the other side" of the cpu. As for disk and disc, im guessing its just how different people spell it, though I must admit disc seems to be used less than disk and floppies seems to be used less as time goes by.
Disk refers to magnetic-based media, ie hard drives and floppy drives. Disc refers to optical drives.
i'll try to remember that too, although, i tend to refer to "discs" as floppys or CDr's and "disks" as HDD's
Ive never thought about it too much. I tend to call discs cd roms or dvds so hopefully it wont be too hard to remember.
Well yes and no. If the processor is busy then the hard drive can get the processor's attention by using an IRQ address (or interupt). If the CPU cannot process all of the imformation at once, the hard drive can use DMA (or Direct Memory Access). Instead of waiting for the CPU to finish what it's doing, the hard drive can send it's data to the memory for the CPU to process later
But ultimately the CPU must process any data that goes to the RAM? Whether it does it immedialty via an interrupt or when there is time by quesing it using DMA? Have I got that correct?
