This section points to several articles on the structure and layout of disks. For most users of CnW Data Recovery software, no in depth knowledge is required. However, for those using the software as a power recovery tool, there is no such thing as too much information.  The level of information aimed at is so that a user may beable to locate the start of a file, and also some understanding of the structure boot sectors on common media.

Each file system is described separately.  Although there are many common concepts, each operating system has very different details.

The common concepts of any file system, or disk storage are as below

• A boot sector
• Partition / track/ session management
• Space allocation on a disk
• Directory structure
• File details, name, date etc
• Data / file storage

NTFS Compressed Files