Patent ID: 7506003

Claim:
A method in connection with a computing device having a storage volume, a file system managing the storage volume, and a plurality of files stored on the storage volume by the file system and accessed by such file system, each file being defined to include data and metadata relating to the data, at least a portion of the data of the file having been removed from the file and stored at one of a plurality of alternate locations such that the data does not occupy substantially any space on the volume and the file is in a reduced, ghosted form, the computing device further having for each of the plurality of alternate locations a corresponding ghosting manager, each ghosting manager for being employed to communicate with the alternate location corresponding thereto, the method for reconstituting a ghosted file for use and comprising a single ghosting filter on the computing device, wherein the single ghosting filter performs the steps of: locating ghosting information in the metadata of the ghosted file; locating within the ghosting information an identification of a particular ghosting manager of the computing device, the identified ghosting manager being responsible for the ghosted file; communicating to the identified ghosting manager a request to obtain data of the ghosted file from the corresponding alternate location, whereby the identified ghosting manager does in fact obtain such requested data from such alternate location; receiving the requested data of the ghosted file from the identified ghosting manager; and reconstituting the received data to the ghosted file, whereby the single ghosting filter is generic to all of the ghosting managers of the computing device.