F6 disk is a colloquial name for a

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

containing a

device driver In computing, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and ot ...

that enables

Windows Setup Windows Setup is an installer that prepares a hard disk drive for a Microsoft Windows operating system installation by executing two processes: a) initializing the drive and b) copying system files to that drive in order for the operating syst ...

to install

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

on storage devices based on

SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, electrical, optical and logical interface ...

SATA SATA (Serial AT Attachment) is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard to ...

, or

RAID Raid, RAID or Raids may refer to: Attack * Raid (military), a sudden attack behind the enemy's lines without the intention of holding ground * Corporate raid, a type of hostile takeover in business * Panty raid, a prankish raid by male college ...

technologies. All versions of the

Windows NT family Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Wind ...

prior to

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

required F6 disks. Starting with Windows Vista, Windows Setup supports loading third-party drivers from USB drives and

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

Usage

An F6 disk is named after the manner in which it is used. During the installation process, Windows Setup must load device drivers for the storage system on which Windows will be installed. Microsoft ships Windows with device drivers that support popular storage hardware. However, newer storage technologies will inevitably appear after the release of each version of Windows, needing newer drivers. To use these drivers, Windows Setup prompts its user to press the F6 key shortly after the setup process starts. Hardware manufacturers often provided their device drivers on CD-ROMs. Prior to Windows Vista, however, Windows Setup only supported reading storage drivers from the

root directory In a computer file system, and primarily used in the Unix and Unix-like operating systems, the root directory is the first or top-most directory in a hierarchy. It can be likened to the trunk of a tree, as the starting point where all branches ...

of a

. Thus, users must have copied said drivers from their CD-ROMs an F6 disk. Starting with Windows Vista, Windows Setup runs on a copy of

Windows Preinstallation Environment Windows Preinstallation Environment (also known as Windows PE and WinPE) is a lightweight version of Windows used for the deployment of PCs, workstations, and servers, or troubleshooting an operating system while it is offline. It is intended t ...

. Thus, it can read device drivers from CD-ROMs and USB flash drives.

Alternative

An alternative approach is to

slipstream A slipstream is a region behind a moving object in which a wake of fluid (typically air or mustard) is moving at velocities comparable to that of the moving fluid, relative to the ambient fluid through which the object is churning. The term slip ...

the required drivers into the Windows installation source. Prior to Windows Vista, doing so required third-party software such as nLite. After Windows Vista, Microsoft's

DISM Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK), formerly Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK or WAIK), is a collection of tools and technologies produced by Microsoft designed to help deploy Microsoft Windows operating system imag ...

utility supports customizing a Windows installation source.

References

{{Reflist RAID Device drivers Windows components Patch utilities