TOC · Work · Menu · Tools

Cluster Map (File Allocation)

Cluster Map Report

The cluster map shows which clusters of the volume are in use and which files they belong to. Use the menu command Windows · Cluster Map to view / close the cluster map and Cluster Map Compact Mode to switch between viewing individual clusters and the whole file fragments.

To use cluster map first open volume and then Update Cluster Map (menu Tools) specifying the necessary parameters. You can specify to process only marked files, to process additionally FS structures and alternate data streams (the support depends on a file system), select File Categories.

The option Use FS reconstruction requires preliminary FS reconsruction in a memory and provides more possibilities (support for found and removed files, full file paths, and allows opening a corresponding file in the File Panel by double clicking the cluster (or hitting [Enter]) in the Cluster map). If [Ctrl] key is additionally pressed then file is opened in the Disk Editor instead. You can move the cluster map to a new tab to pin it and open files in a different panel.

The cluster map status line provides information for a selected cluster / file fragment:
[current cluster/clusters number] "file (stream) name" vcn: cluster number per file

To navigate between clusters you can use the Menu commands:
Editor · Volume Cluster [Alt+C] to go to a specific volume cluster
Editor · Volume Sector [Alt+S] to go to a specific volume sector
Editor · Physical Sector [Alt+P] to go to a specific device sector.

Then the Menu command
Editor · Cluster Map [Ctrl+M] opens the cluster map at the given position,
Editor · File Data [Ctrl+Alt+F] opens a file located at the given disk position.

Cluster Map Report

The cluster map report allows obtaining a list of files located at specified sectors as well as obtaining a list of clusters occupied by specified files. To create a list of clusters occupied by specified files you should mark the necessary files in the directory tree and then use menu Tools · Update Cluster Map to rebuild the map with the option marked only and then run a report.

You can specify to report only files, to report file paths, and to report fragments boundaries in bytes from the disk start to use the report with different software.

It is also possible to obtain information about file allocation without building a cluster map by using the option List in the dialog box "Recover".