An overview of file systems
A file system is a method an operating system uses to arrange data and free space on a hard drive or other storage device so it can be written to and read from. File systems create partitions which are areas of free space than can be addressed by the file system and seen as a logical drives (C: D: etc.) to be written to and read from.
The two file systems used by the various Windows operating systems are NTFS (NT File System) and FAT (File Allocation Table). FAT is an earlier file system, used first in DOS as FAT-16, then later in Windows 9x/ME as FAT-32.
The only major difference between FAT-16 and -32 is in the amount of data they can address. FAT-16 can only use up to 2GB of space on each logical drive, and FAT-32 has no such limitation. Data my look like it has been lost but can be recovered using data recovery techniques
Later Microsoft operating systems like Windows 2000 and XP are fully compatible with FAT, even if it is not the default method they use to store files.
NTFS is used in Windows NT, 2000 and XP and provides a more secure and efficient method of file storage. In addition to allowing security to be implemented on individual files, NTFS also stores backup copies of essential disk information to aid in recovering from disaster.
Both file systems use the Master Boot Record (MBR) and partition table, found in the first sector of each hard drive or storage device. The MBR and partition table determine which partition(s) on the disk are bootable, and locate and pass control to that partition to boot the operating system.
If the MBR or partition table are damaged, the drive will become unbootable, and may appear to be blank if the partition information has been erased.
No comments:
Post a Comment