This part is an implementation of the FAT12/16/32-filesystem based on raw access. You can create devices with it and use them as a file system with direct access to the underlying storage. The type of the devices can be RAM, RAF, or Native.
The first two types of devices can be created by everybody, for the last one you need administrator access to your computer. To create a native-device the name of the device must equal the system dependant name of the device you want to access. For Unix-systems to access the first floppy device the name of the device must be /dev/fd0. For Windows-systems it's a:. You have to be very carefully and you should know what you are doing, because all information of the device that you access as native device get lost. They will be overwritten by the new file system. To use the native-device you need a Win2000, NT, XP, or a Unix/Linux system.
Information about each device except the RAM-device that you create will be stored in a text-file. So you don't need to remember all the device names and types that you create. If you don't specify the file to store all this device information a default file will be used. The default filename is filesystem.txt. Normally you don't need to manipulate this file manually, because this program is able to manipulate the file. In case you want to manipulate it manually here is the format specification: Each line contains information about one device. The first string is the name of the device. The second string is the size in bytes of the device and the last string of each line is the type of the device (RAM, RAF, Native). All strings are separated by a tabular sign and each line must end with a cr and lf.
Independent of the device type there are restrictions about the size in blocks for each FAT-type. One block has a fixed size of 512 bytes. The smallest devices can be made as a FAT12-filesystem. The maximum number of blocks for that file system is 4084. A FAT16-filesystem has a minimum size of 32680 blocks and maximum size of 4194304 blocks. For a FAT32-filesystem you must spend at least 532480 number of blocks.
Since you have raw (direct) access to the underlying storage without a buffer of your 'real' file system you should not worry if some operations take a longer time than you are used to. You should take the chance to implement a benchmark for disk access or whatever, with the guarantee that no system buffer fakes your results.
There is another thing you should know. Since you are able to store a RAF-device on an other device (or path) than your working device (and path), the name of your created device exists of components of a 'real' device name, i.e. your working directory is 'c:\xxl' and you create a RAF-device 'fat12' at 'd:\dir'' then the 'real' name of the device is 'd:\dir\fat12' except than 'fat12'. This is exactly the name shown at the device tree. But if you use the RawExplorer to operate on a device you should always use the name 'fat12' only, since this is the interior name of the device. For example if you want to create a file 'text.dat' on your device 'd:\dir\fat12' and you are asked for the device name you should enter 'fat12', since the interior path is 'fat12:\text.dat' and not 'd:\dir\fat12\text.dat'. Otherwise the file system will handle 'dir' and 'fat12' as folders.