the prt of a floppy disk or hard disk where information is stored about the location of each piece of information on the disk (and about the location of unusable areas of the disk)
A FAT keeps track of file locations in a particular volume The NetWare network operating system (NOS) divides each volume into blocks and stores files on the volume in these blocks If the file consists of one or more blocks, the file may be stored in blocks that are not adjacent The FAT keeps track of the block numbers where different parts of the file are located To retrieve a file, the NetWare NOS searches through the FAT until it finds the FAT entries and corresponding block numbers for the requested file
An area of the disk drive that serves as a sort of road map, indicating to the operating system where data is stored It operates in conjunction with the directory structure
An area on a hard disk or floppy disk where information is stored about the physical location of each piece of every file on the disk and about the location of unusable areas of the disk
On personal computers, a directory that stores information such as the file name, file size, the time and date the file was last changed, and the cluster number where the file begins 5 5
A table or list maintained by an operating system to allocate disk space for file usage and to locate and chain together parts of fragmented files on the hard drive
A table maintained by the DOS or OS/2 operating systems that lists all of the clusters available on a disk The FAT includes the location of each cluster, as well as whether it is in use, available for use, or damaged in soem way and therefore unavailable Because files are not necessarily stored in consecutive clusters on a disk, but can be scattered all over the disk, the FAT also keeps track of which pieces belong to which file OS/2 supports a compatible version of the DOSFAT, sometimes known as the SuperFAT, which adds 32-bit capabilities to increase speed, access to OS/2 extended attributes, and a free space bitmap which results in much reduced allocation times
A file system based on a file allocation table (FAT) maintained by some operating systems, including Windows NT and Windows 2000, to keep track of the status of various segments of disk space used for file storage
A table the operating system uses to locate files on a disk The file contains information about the size of files and which cluster contains which files The table is located on sector 0 of the disk
An area on the disk (floppy or logical drive) set aside to reference file locations on that disk The table is a chain identifying where each part of a file is located It acts similarly to a table of contents for a book
A table that the operating system on a personal computer uses to locate files on a disk Due to fragmentation, a file may be divided into many sections that are scattered around the disk The FAT keeps track of all these pieces See also superblock