POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.off-topic : Why is defragging so slow? : Re: Why is defragging so slow? Server Time
6 Sep 2024 03:13:23 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Why is defragging so slow?  
From: Darren New
Date: 5 Jun 2009 11:59:34
Message: <4a2940e6$1@news.povray.org>
Warp wrote:
>   I don't remember the exact names, but they looked meaningful. Maybe they
> were somehow related to the NTFS file system.

Anything with a $ at the front is a file in NTFS used to run the file 
system. Everything on NTFS is actually in a file, so you have things like
$RECYCLE.BIN (not really a magic file, tho)
$MFT (basically, inodes)
$BOOT (boot file the boot sector points to - the "superblock")
$BITMAP (the free space bitmap)
$USN (unique serial number file - no ext3 equivalent I know of)
$JOURNAL (transaction journal)

You also have files for the keys used for encryption and security 
descriptors.  (In later NTFS versions, each different ACL is hashed into its 
place in the security descriptor file and a pointer to it is stored in the 
file. Apparently a space saving over storing the full ACL with each file.)

Stuff with a : in the name means you have a different fork of the file. Kind 
of like how System7 had data forks and resource forks on Mac, except each 
fork is a byte stream and you can have as many as you want. Forks that start 
with a $ are used by MS, either the file system or the shell.

Without knowing the actual name, it would be hard to guess what they were. 
Glad you got it fixed, tho.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!


Post a reply to this message

Copyright 2003-2023 Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd.