* Frank Cox writes to Whoever cares, on Tuesday April 22 1997
   at 14:37:
 FC> Does anyone know how DOS reads a file?  Would that type of "secret
 FC> data" follow along if one copied the affected file from one place to
 FC> another, i.e. does DOS read a file one cluster at a time until it runs
 FC> out of file (and thereby copying the slack space at the end of the
 FC> last cluster), or does it read it byte-by-byte until it hits the
 FC> end-of-file.
COMMAND.COM does the copying, rather than DOS; COMMAND.COM does no direct 
manipulation of the FAT as far as I know. A COMMAND.COM copy would merely be 
"read X bytes, put X bytes" repeated several times.
 FC> Would the "secret data" follow along if one ran DEFRAG?
Should do, as defraggers would shift entire clusters at the sector level.
Cheers.
... rowan@sensation.net.au
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