Fat -
FAT, or File Allocation Table, is a file system that is designed to keep track of allocation status of clusters on a hard drive. Developed in 1977 by Microsoft Corporation, FAT was originally intended to be a file system for the Microsoft Disk BASIC interpreter. FAT was quickly incorporated into an early version of Tim Patterson's QDOS, which was a moniker for "Quick and Dirty Operating System". Microsoft later purchased the rights to QDOS and released it under Microsoft branding as PC-DOS and later, MS-DOS.
Specification
FAT is described by Microsoft in Microsoft Extensible Firmware Initiative FAT32 File System Specification - FAT: General Overview of On-Disk Format. Despite the name, the document includes descriptions of FAT12 and FAT16.
Closely related standards are: ECMA 107 and ISO/EIC 9293, which only cover FAT12 and FAT16, and also are somewhat more restricted than the file system described by Microsoft's document.
Structure
Boot sector
	
More reserved
sectors (optional)
	
FAT #1
	
FAT #2
	
Root directory
(FAT12/16 only)
	
Data region
(rest of disk)
	
Boot Record
When a computer is powered on, a POST (power-on self test) is performed, and control is then transferred to the Master boot record (MBR). The MBR is present no matter what file system is in use, and contains information about how the storage device is logically partitioned. When using a FAT file system, the MBR hands off control of the computer to the Boot Record, which is the first sector on the partition. The Boot Record, which occupies a reserved area on the partition, contains executable code, in addition to information such as an OEM identifier, number of FATs, media descriptor (type of storage device), and information about the operating system to be booted. Once the Boot Record code executes, control is handed off to the operating system installed on that partition.
Note that ECMA 107 does not define the boot record signature 0x55, 0xaa (or 0xaa55)
FATs
The primary task of the File Alocation Tables are to keep track of the allocation status of clusters, or logical groupings of sectors, on the disk drive. There are four different possible FAT entries: allocated (along with the address of the next cluster associated with the file), unallocated, end of file, and bad sector.
In order to provide redundancy in case of data corruption, two FATs, FAT1 and FAT2, are stored in the file system. FAT2 is a typically a duplicate of FAT1. However, FAT mirroring can be disabled on a FAT32 drive, thus enabling any of the FATs to become the Primary FAT. This possibly leaves FAT1 empty, which can be deceiving.
Root Directory
The Root Directory, sometimes referred to as the Root Folder, contains an entry for each file and directory stored in the file system. This information includes the file name, starting cluster number, and file size. This information is changed whenever a file is created or subsequently modified. Root directory has a fixed size of 512 entries on a hard disk and the size on a floppy disk depends. With FAT32 it can be stored anywhere within the partition, although in previous versions it is always located immediately following the FAT region.
Data Area
The Boot Record, FATs, and Root Directory are collectively referred to as the System Area. The remaining space on the logical drive is called the Data Area, which is where files are actually stored. It should be noted that when a file is deleted by the operating system, the data stored in the Data Area remains intact until it is overwritten.
Clusters
In order for FAT to manage files with satisfactory efficiency, and also to increase maximum size of the volume, it groups sectors into larger blocks referred to as clusters. A cluster is the smallest unit of disk space that can be allocated to a file, which is why clusters are often called allocation units. Each cluster can be used by one and only one file (or directory). Only the "data area" is divided into clusters, the rest of the partition is simply sectors. Cluster size is determined by the size of the disk volume and every file must be allocated an integral number of clusters. Cluster sizing has a significant impact on performance and disk utilization. Larger cluster sizes result in more wasted space because files are less likely to fill up an even number of clusters.
The size of one cluster is specified in the Boot Record and can range from a single sector (512 bytes) to 128 sectors (65536 bytes). The sectors in a cluster are continuous, therefore each cluster is a continuous block of space on the disk. Note that only one file can be allocated to a cluster. Therefore if a 1KB file is placed within a 32KB cluster there are 31KB of wasted space. The formula for determining clusters in a partition is (# of Sectors in Partition) - (# of Sectors per Fat * 2) - (# of Reserved Sectors) ) / (# of Sectors per Cluster).
Wasted Sectors
Wasted Sectors (a.k.a. **partition slack are a result of the number of data sectors not being evenly distributed by the cluster size. It's made up of unused bytes left at the end of a file. Also, if the partition as declared in the partition table is larger than what is claimed in the Boot Record the volume can be said to have wasted sectors. Small files on a hard drive are the reason for wasted space and the bigger the hard drive the more wasted space there is.
FAT Entry Values
FAT12
0x000 (Free Cluster) 0x001 (Reserved Cluster) 0x002 - 0xFEF (Used cluster; value points to next cluster) 0xFF0 - 0xFF6 (Reserved values) 0xFF7 (Bad cluster) 0xFF8 - 0xFFF (Last cluster in file)
FAT16
0x0000 (Free Cluster) 0x0001 (Reserved Cluster) 0x0002 - 0xFFEF (Used cluster; value points to next cluster) 0xFFF0 - 0xFFF6 (Reserved values) 0xFFF7 (Bad cluster) 0xFFF8 - 0xFFFF (Last cluster in file)
FAT32
0x?0000000 (Free Cluster) 0x?0000001 (Reserved Cluster) 0x?0000002 - 0x?FFFFFEF (Used cluster; value points to next cluster) 0x?FFFFFF0 - 0x?FFFFFF6 (Reserved values) 0x?FFFFFF7 (Bad cluster) 0x?FFFFFF8 - 0x?FFFFFFF (Last cluster in file)
Note: FAT32 uses only 28 of 32 possible bits, the upper 4 bits should be left alone. Typically these bits are zero, and are represented above by a question mark (?).
Versions
There are multiple variants of FAT in existence, the most common ones are probably: FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32.
FAT12
FAT12 is a type of FAT that uses a 12 bit file allocation table entry.
FAT12 can hold a max of 4,084 clusters (which is 212 clusters minus a few values that are reserved for values used in the FAT).
It is used for floppy disks and hard drive partitions that are smaller than 16 MB.
All 1.44 MB 3.5" floppy disks are formatted using FAT12.
Cluster size that is used is between 0.5 KB to 4 KB.
FAT16
It is called FAT16 because all entries are 16 bit.
FAT16 can hold a max of 65,524 addressable units
It is used for small and moderate sized hard disk volumes.
FAT32
FAT32 is the enhanced version of the FAT system implemented beginning with Windows 95 OSR2, Windows 98, and Windows Me. Features include:
Drives of up to 2 terabytes are supported (windows
Since FAT32 uses smaller clusters (of 4 kilobytes each), it uses hard drive space more efficiently. This is a 10 to 15 percent improvement over FAT or FAT16.
The limitations of FAT or FAT 16 on the number of root folder entries have been eliminated. In FAT32, the root folder is an ordinary cluster chain, and can be located anywhere on the drive.
File allocation mirroring can be disabled in FAT32. This allows a different copy of the file allocation table then the default to be active.
Limitations with Windows 2000 & Windows XP
Clusters cannot be 64KB or larger.
Cannot decrease cluster size that will result in the the FAT being larger than 16 MB minus 64KB in size.
Cannot contain fewer than 65,527 clusters.
Maximum of 32KB per cluster.
Windows XP: The Windows XP installation program will not allow a user to format a drive of more than 32GB using the FAT32 file system. Using the installation program, the only way to format a disk greater than 32GB in size is to use NTFS. A disk larger than 32GB in size can be formatted with FAT32 for use with Windows XP if the system is booted from a Windows 98 or Windows ME startup disk, and formatted using the tool that will be on the disk.
exFAT (sometimes incorrectly called FAT64)
exFAT (also know as Extended File Allocation Table or exFAT) is Microsoft's latest version of FAT and works with Windows Embedded CE 6.0, Windows XP/Server 2003 (with a KB patch, Vista/Server 2008 SP 1 & Later, and Windows 7. Features include:
Largest file size is 264 bytes (16 exabytes) vs. FAT32's maximum file size of 4GB.
Has transaction support using Transaction-Safe Extended FAT File System (TexFAT). (Not released yet in Desktop/Server OS)
Speeds up storage allocation processes by using free space bitmaps.
Support UTC timestamps (Vista/Server 2008 SP1 does not support UTC, UTC support came out with SP2)
Maximum Cluster size of 32MB (Fat32 is 32KB)
Sector sizes from 512 bytes to 4096 bytes in size
Maximum FAT supportable volume size of 128PB
Maximum Subdirectory size of 256MB which can support up to over 2 million files in a single subdirectory
Uses a Bitmap for cluster allocation
Supports File Permissions (Not released yet in Desktop/Server OS)
Has been selected as the exclusive file system of the SDXC memory card by the SD Association
Although Microsoft has published some information on exFAT, there are more technical specifications available from third parties. For example, here is a detailed presentation on exFAT.
Another published technical paper that goes in the internals in great detail is in the SANS Reading Room at: Reverse Engineering the Microsoft exFAT File System
Comparison of FAT Versions
See the table at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table for more detailed information about the various versions of FAT.
Uses
Due to its low cost, mobility, and non-volatile nature, flash memory has quickly become the choice medium for storing and transferring data in consumer electronic devices. The majority of flash memory storage is formatted using the FAT file system. In addition, FAT is also frequently used in electronic devices with miniature hard drives.
Examples of devices in which FAT is utilized include:
USB thumb drives
Digital cameras
Digital camcorders
Portable audio and video players
Multifunction printers
Electronic photo frames
Electronic musical instruments
Standard televisions
PDAs
Data Recovery
Recovering directory entries from FAT filesystems as part of recovering deleted data can be accomplished by looking for entries that begin with a sigma 0xe5. When a file or directory is deleted under a FAT filesystem, the first character of its name is changed to sigma. The remainder of the directory entry information remains intact.
The pointers are also changed to zero for each cluster used by the file. Recovery tools look at the FAT to find the entry for the file. The location of the starting cluster will still be in the directory file. It is not deleted or modified. The tool will go straight to that cluster and try to recover the file using the file size to determine the number of clusters to recover. Some tools will go to the starting cluster and recover the next "X" number of clusters needed for the specific file size. However, this tool is not ideal. An ideal tool will locate "X" number of available clusters. Since files are most often fragmented, this will be a more precise way to recover the file.
An issue arises when two files in the same row of clusters are deleted. If the clusters are not in sequential order, the tool will automatically receive "X" number of clusters. However, because the file was fragmented, it's most likely that all the clusters obtained will not all contain data for that file. If these two deleted files are in the same row of clusters, it is highly unlikely the file can be recovered.
File Slack
File slack is data that starts from the end of the file written and continues to the end of the sectors designated to the file. There are two types of file slack, RAM slack and Residual slack. RAM slack starts from the end of the file and goes to the end of that sector. Residual slack then starts at the next sector and goes to the end of the cluster allocated for the file. File slack is a helpful tool when analyzing a hard drive because the old data that is not overwritten by the new file is still in tact. Go to https://www.pcguide.com/hdd/ for examples.
Cluster 	Sample Slack Space, ` 50% Cluster Slack Per File` 	Sample Slack Space, ` 67% Cluster Slack Per File` 	
2 kiB 	17 MB 	22 MB 	
4 kiB 	33 MB 	44 MB 	
8 kiB 	66 MB 	89 MB 	
16 kiB 	133 MB 	177 MB 	
32 kiB 	265 MB 	354 MB 	
The diagram above demonstrates the larger the cluster size used, the more disk space is wasted due to slack. This suggests it is better to use smaller cluster sizes whenever possible.
FAT Advantages
Files available to multiple operating systems on the same computer
Easier to switch from FAT to NTFS than vice versa
Performs faster on smaller volumes (\< 10GB)
Does not index files, which causes slightly higher performance
Performs better with small cache sizes (\< 96MB)
More space-efficient on small volumes (\< 4GB)
Performs better with slow disks (\< 5400RPM)
FAT Disadvantages
FAT has a fixed maximum number of clusters per partition, which means as the hard disk gets bigger the size of each cluster must increase, creating more slack space
Doesn't natively support many abilities of NTFS such as on-the-fly compression, encryption, or advanced security using access control lists
NTFS recommended by Microsoft for volumes larger than 32GB
FAT slows down as the number of files on the disk increases
FAT usually fragments files more
FAT does not allow for indexing of files for faster searching
FAT does not support user quotas
FAT has minimal security features including no access control list (ACL) capability.
FAT date and time values
Python code to convert a FAT date and time value into a Python datetime object.
import datetime def FromFatDateTime(fat_date_time): """Converts a FAT date and time into a Python datetime object. FAT date time is mainly used in DOS/Windows file formats and FAT. The FAT date and time is a 32-bit value containing two 16-bit values: * The date (lower 16-bit). * bits 0 - 4: day of month, where 1 represents the first day * bits 5 - 8: month of year, where 1 represent January * bits 9 - 15: year since 1980 * The time of day (upper 16-bit). * bits 0 - 4: seconds (in 2 second intervals) * bits 5 - 10: minutes * bits 11 - 15: hours Args: fat_date_time: The 32-bit FAT date time. Returns: A datetime object containing the date and time or None. """ day_of_month = (fat_date_time & 0x1f) month = ((fat_date_time >> 5) & 0x0f) year = (fat_date_time >> 9) & 0x7f if day_of_month < 0 or day_of_month > 30 or month < 0 or month > 11: return None fat_date_time >>= 16 seconds = (fat_date_time & 0x1f) * 2 minutes = (fat_date_time >> 5) & 0x3f hours = (fat_date_time >> 11) & 0x1f if hours > 23 or minutes > 59 or seconds > 59: return None return datetime.datetime( 1980 + year, month, day_of_month, hours, minutes, seconds) 
External links
Wikipedia: File Allocation Table
Wikipedia: Design of the FAT file system
NTFS — New Technology File System for Windows
exFAT file system specification
Format documentation
ECMA-107: Volume and File Structure of Disk Cartridges for Information Interchange, 2nd Edition - June 1995
Microsoft Extensible Firmware Initiative FAT32 File System Specification - FAT: General Overview of On-Disk Format, by Microsoft, December 6, 2000
An overview of FAT12, by Archana Chidanandan, 2004
exFAT file system specification, by Microsoft, 2019-08-27
Volume serial number
Volume Serial Numbers and Format Date/Time Verification, by Craig Wilson, October 2003 (updated June 2005)
ExFAT
Wikipedia: ExFAT
exFAT File System
Reverse Engineering the Microsoft exFAT File System, by Robert Shullich, December 1, 2009
Extended FAT file system, by Jeff Hamm, December 2009
Demystifying the Microsoft Extended FAT File System (exFAT), by Robert Shullich, September 20, 2010
Windows Phone 7 : Implications For Digital Forensic Investigators, by Yung Anh Le, 2012
textFAT
TexFAT Padding Directory Entry
Tools
exFAT
Open Source exFAT file system implementation