Where the addresses of different files in Windows OS will get stored in hard-disk? What is the filename where the files address get stored?
Can Someone help me out in knowing the answer of this question?

Hi Amit,

Generally speaking, files are written (stored) to a hard disk starting with the first available space on the disk. If you are installing Windows on a newly formatted disk then the files are written to the disk consecutively (one after the other) from the beginning of the free space.

If you have deleted files and then other files are copied to disk, the space used may start where a file has been deleted. If this space is not big enough to store the whole file than the next part of the file is stored in the next available space and so on. This means the file is stored in fragments across your disk and can cause your system to slow down when the file is accessed. This is one reason why it is a good idea to defrag your disk regularly to make sure each file is stored in one piece as far as possible.

The actual addresses of the files are held in the File Allocation Table (for FAT16 or FAT32 file systems) or the Master File Table (NTFS file systems).

Does this answer your question?

Hi Amit,

The FAT resides in the boot sector of the disk and can be likened to the index of a book. The actual entries are created when a file is written to disk. The Fat will have an entry identifying an unused disk sector. The file is written to this sector and the FAT entry updated to reflect the address of the beginning of the file and also other information such as the address where the next part of the file is stored.

There is an article here discussing the FAT in more detail. There is also a MS article here .

Is there a specific question you need to answer regarding filing systems?

You're welcome!

Glad we could help

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