Operating instructions

partition A section of the storage area of a hard disk. A partition is created
during initial preparation of the hard disk, before the disk is formatted.
partition table A table located in the boot sector of a hard drive that lists every
partition on the disk that contains a valid operating system.
password reset disk A special type of floppy disk that can enable a user to
recover a lost password without losing access to any encrypted, or password-
protected, data.
PATA (parallel ATA) A disk drive implementation that integrates the control
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ler on the disk drive itself. See also ATA, IDE, SATA.
patch A small piece of software released by a software manufacturer that is
used to correct a flaw or problem with a particular piece of software.
patch cables Short (2–5 foot) UTP cables that connect patch panels to hubs.
patch panel A panel containing a row of female connectors (ports) that ter-
minate the horizontal cabling in the equipment room. Patch panels facilitate ca-
bling organization and provide protection to horizontal cabling.
path The route the operating system must follow to find an executable pro-
gram stored in a subdirectory.
PC Card Credit card–sized adapter cards that add functionality in many note
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book computers, PDAs, and other computer devices. PC Cards come in 16-bit
and CardBus parallel format and ExpressCard serial format. See also PCMCIA.
PCI (peripheral component interconnect) A design architecture for the ex
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pansion bus on the computer motherboard, which enables system components
to be added to the computer. PCI is a “local bus”standard, meaning that devices
added to a computer through this port will use the processor at the mother
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board’s full speed (up to 33 MHz), rather than at the slower 8 MHz speed of the
regular bus. In addition to moving data at a faster rate, PCI moves data 32 or 64
bits at a time, rather than the 8 or 16 bits that the older ISA buses supported.
PCIe (PCI Express) The serialized successor to PCI and AGP, which uses the
concept of individual data paths called lanes. A PCIe slot may use any number of
lanes, although single lanes (×1) and 16 lanes (×16) are the most common on
motherboards.
50 MIKE MEYERS’ A+ CERTIFICATION PASSPORT
Passport / Mike Meyers‘ A+ Certification Passport / Meyers / 226308-3 / Glossary
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