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<concept xml:lang="en" id="GUID-629AB2C9-BEDD-5166-8B09-F8DFF7527C03"><title>The system drive</title><prolog><metadata><keywords/></metadata></prolog><conbody><p>Symbian OS allows a drive on a device to be marked as the system drive. The system drive is set up during device startup and cannot subsequently be changed. It has the following properties: </p> <ul><li id="GUID-F0C2D00C-C7B6-5784-9834-02AC3ED7647A"><p>it is both readable and writable. </p> </li> <li id="GUID-13E4ECB2-E432-5741-BDB7-CA1413CF1F93"><p>it is always available, cannot be removed from the device, and is secure. </p> </li> <li id="GUID-74F7015E-1937-5199-978D-C21960E1F429"><p>it is non-volatile, which means that the drive is located on media such as flash memory or battery-backed RAM. </p> </li> </ul> <p>Typically, the system drive is used: </p> <ul><li id="GUID-DA8E500E-F940-56BA-A506-D9D69D9F231A"><p>for storing persistent settings for system and application software. </p> </li> <li id="GUID-2EC9B640-BE97-5DA3-A222-37A7DF553B2E"><p>for storing localisation resources. </p> </li> <li id="GUID-0FCD75EF-9D0A-520C-BD96-8E03372CF52B"><p>as a default drive for user data. </p> </li> <li id="GUID-E77D6A04-4CCE-5EA1-99B7-2F399985A82F"><p>as a target drive for installing software. </p> </li> </ul> <section id="GUID-0544A0FC-6CDC-57A1-9750-9445DC7CD521"><title>Getting the system drive</title> <p>The system drive is identified by its drive letter. Use the function <xref href="GUID-E263C747-946F-35AA-9F1D-41833BD350FC.dita#GUID-E263C747-946F-35AA-9F1D-41833BD350FC/GUID-4DBDB23D-A64D-3428-8D6B-1941CB457CB6"><apiname>RFs::GetSystemDriveChar()</apiname></xref> to find the system drive letter. </p> <p>If you also need to know the drive number, then you can use the function <xref href="GUID-E263C747-946F-35AA-9F1D-41833BD350FC.dita#GUID-E263C747-946F-35AA-9F1D-41833BD350FC/GUID-E3FADD47-C66B-3E79-827A-DEE36EE79B0E"><apiname>RFs::GetSystemDrive()</apiname></xref> to find this. However, getting the drive letter is the most common requirement. </p> <p>[Note that in versions of Symbian OS before 9.2, the system drive number was fetched using the function <codeph>BaflUtils::GetSystemDrive()</codeph>. This function is now <i>deprecated</i> and should <i>not</i> be used.] </p> </section> </conbody></concept>