File Allocation Table (FAT) is the main control structure on the FAT16/32 filesystem (in fact, filesystem is named FAT16/32 after the File Allocation Table). FAT keeps track of all the files on volume, recording where they are stored. Should the table become corrupted for some reason, files on the volume are no longer accessible because it is not known where they are stored. Implementations of FAT filesystem used in DOS and Windows keep two identical copies of the table to provide additional redundancy (for example, if a sector in one copy goes bad, backup copy can be used).

 

Once the area where FATs are stored is approximately located, ZAR scans this area in order to determine precise position of FAT copies, and ten most relevant variants are shown. For each probable FAT parameter set the following information is provided:

 

Start/Size, sectors - physical location of a first FAT copy on the disk.

Type - FAT type (can be either FAT16 or FAT32).

Volume Size, Mb - size of the volume described by FAT. It is useful to verify the size shown against the expected volume size.

Relevance - greater relevance means better parameter set.

Signatures field provides results of a FAT signature test. Each FAT copy starts with a specific well-known data sequence ("signature"). If both signatures were found where expected, "Both" is shown as test outcome. "Partial" means only one of two signatures was found, indicating that at least one FAT copy is (at least partially) damaged, and "Bad" status means no FAT signatures were found at all.

Boot Sector field indicates if a boot record matching the parameter set exists.