2.3 The Fatback Interpreter

If Fatback is run without the -a or --auto option, it enters what is called interactive mode. In interactive mode, Fatback gives you a prompt to which you can enter commands and direct Fatback to perform more specific tasks than the automatic undelete mode.

If the input is a partitioned drive, Fatback will first display a menu of possible partitions and prompt you for which you would like to work with. Fatback will then enter the partition and you may begin exploring and recovering files!

The command interpreter is loosely modeled after the classic UNIX shell environment. The interpreter provides a prompt (‘fatback>’ by default), and mimics several UNIX shell commands such as ‘ls’, ‘cd’, ‘pwd’ , ‘cp’, and many others.

Fatback version 1.3 has the following commands:

cd

Change to a specified directory

copy
cp

Copy files out to an external file system

help

Display a list of commands and a brief description of each

dir
ls

List entries in a directory

pwd

Print the name of the current directory

stat

Display detailed information about a directory entry

chain

Display the cluster chain for a directory entry

cpchain

Copy a cluster chain out to a file

lostchains

Display a list of lost cluster chains in the current partition

sh

Execute a command in the outside environment

set

Set run-time variables within Fatback

done

Stop working with the current partition, or exit fatback if in single partition mode.

quit

Exit Fatback

The copy command is synonymous with cp, and the dir command is synonymous with ls. The copy and dir aliases where created to give users who primarily use DOS a familiar interface. However, the Fatback interpreter was designed to mimic a UNIX shell, so the cp and ls forms are preferred and used by all the documentation.

It is important to note that Fatback is very case sensitive. All directory entries are in upper case, and some may have a long file name (see Long File Names) associated with it that can be mixed case. When specifying directory entries you must use either the exact uppercase name, or the long file name. To specify a long file name that contains white space, put the whole name in double quotes. For example, the Program Files directory in a windows system can be specified by either ‘PROGRA~1’ or ‘"Program Files"’.