Chapter 6.
Hard Disk And File
Systems
90
Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000–2005
A.7
Formatting Hard Disks
Within each of the partitions, information has to be organized in a way understandable to
the operating system using that partition. This organization is the
file system
.
As a rule, a formatting program performs the following functions:
•
It creates the boot record
•
It creates the file allocation table (FAT)
•
It identifies and marks bad clusters on the disk so they are not ever used afterwards
After formatting, logical disks are organized as follows:
•
Logical disks start with the boot sector
•
One or several copies of the file allocation table (FAT) are placed after the boot sector
•
A root folder is created
•
The data area is created
Each logical disk has to be formatted with the FORMAT command separately.
A.8 File
Systems
The logical structure that has been created on the hard disk is supported by means of the
operating system. The file system itself presents the information on the disk as an
ensemble of
files
and
folders
.
For the user, a file is a unit of storage of logically connected information, including texts,
graphics, and sound. For data storage organization, a file is a chain of connected sectors
or
clusters
. A cluster is a unit of several sectors. (Sectors are characteristic for file
systems supported by various versions of Windows.)
Operating systems support file systems on hard disks (or disk partitions) by allowing you
to create, copy and delete files and folders.
At present, the most widely used file systems for PCs are the following two:
•
FAT16/FAT32 (file allocation table) for DOS, OS/2 and
Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP;
•
NTFS (Windows NT file system) for Windows NT/2000/XP.
