On Wednesday 26 November 2003 13:55, Adrian Pirciu wrote: > On Wednesday 26 November 2003 06:35, Hemmann, Volker Armin wrote: > > If something is 'deleted' it should be gone from the fs point of > > view (like in linux). Not hidden from the user with a nifty > > charackter or in a special dir (like in dos or windows). So to > > install a tool, simple to unhidde and/or delete this hidden files > > is only a weak patch for a imho borked design. > > I now understand what you mean. Taking out of discussion the "recycle > bin" stuff, which of course can't be named deletion, I'm not sure if > the "marking" (4E in hexa if I remeber correctly) is so bad after > all. Of course, there will be records in FAT that maybe shoudn't be > there, but at least a beginner can undelete his mp3s or part of them > after a mistake. I would be tempted to say that this marking thing > was meant for beginners, but at the time when dos was created, i > doubt they designed FAT with this consideration in mind. > All in all, fat follows the windows style, and it's up to the users to > choose a file system.
Actually, the FAT itself is just a flat array indexed by allocation unit. The data held is either a marker for empty space, a marker for the last unit in a file or a reference to the next unit. When a file is deleted, the first character in the directory entry is changed and the FAT entries are reset to empty space - all that is left is a pointer to the first unit. The reason why undelete programs work on FAT is because they have intimite knowledge of how the OS places files and that takes an educated guess at what part of the file went where. Jason -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
