More
About
Files
and
Directories
31
These
two
system areas,
the
directories
and
the
File Allocation
Table,
enable
MS·DOS
to
recognize
and
organize
the
files
on
your
disks.
To
check
these areas
on
a disk for consistency
and
errors
you
should
use
the
MS·DOS
chkdsk
command.
For example,
to
check
the
disk in drive
A,
type
the
chkdsk
com-
mand
followed
by
a:
In response, MS·DOS displays a status
report
and
any
errors
it has
found,
such
as files that
show
a
nonzero
size in
the
directory
but
that really have
no
data in them.
For
an
example
of
such a display
and
for
more
information
on
chkdsk,
see
the
description
of
the
chkdsk
command
in
Chapter
3,
"MS·
DOS Commands."
Multilevel Directories
When
there
is
more
than
one
user
on
your
computer,
or
when
you
are
working
on
several different projects,
the
number
of
files
in
the
directory
can
become
large
and
unwieldy. You may
want
to
keep
your
files separate from a coworker's,
or
you may
want
to
organize
your
programs into
convenient
categories.
In
an
office, you can
separate
and
organize files
that
belong
to
dif-
ferent
people
or
that relate
to
specific
projects
by
putting
them
in
different file cabinets. For example, you might
put
your
account-
ing
programs
in
one
file
cabinet
and
your
letters in another. You
can
do
the
same thing
with
MS· DOS
by
putting
your
files
into
dif-
ferent directories.
Using
directories
is
one
way that you can divide
your
files into
convenient
groups.
Anyone
directory
can
contain
a
maximum
of
255
files
and
directories.
These
directories may also
contain
other
directories
(referred
to
as subdirectories). This organized file
structure
is called a
multilevel
or
hierarchical directory system.
Checking a disk
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