Hello ----  I mounted / browsed a   file/folder backup  and checked to see if the data streams in the files were present --- and they were not ---- is this by design?  Is there an option to also include the data streams in the backup? 

If you haven’t already, try actually restoring the files to an alternate location on an NTFS volume. Mounting F&F backups uses a “tbFAT” file system since the backup itself contains no file system like image backups do, and data streams are an NTFS concept.

Thanks for the info --- In the past when I needed a file or 2 from F/F backup I would just mount the backup image and copy the files in question, but  you noted 
"restore" -- so would a "restore"   restore that data streams?

if the F/F backup was 1000 files would all 1000 have to be "restore" or can I just specify the files I need to replace? 

Lastly --- it seems that that the tbFAT filesystem is a Macrium invention ---  it seems to have the same proprieties of exFAT 

I believe tbFAT is indeed a Macrium invention. Previous versions used FAT32, but that resulted in files larger than 4 GB not being properly restorable from a mount. Those had to be restored through the wizard.

When I said to try restoring, I meant use the actual Restore wizard. Open Reflect, go to Existing Backups, select the backup of interest, and click Restore. The wizard allows you to select specific content to restore. I don’t know if that will restore data streams, but you should be able to find out quickly. My point was simply that data streams not being available when the file is presented on a non-NTFS file system would be expected, and therefore not seeing them on a mount doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t be restored through a typical restore.

+x

 

jphughan - 18 November 2023 3:02 PM

I believe tbFAT is indeed a Macrium invention. Previous versions used FAT32, but that resulted in files larger than 4 GB not being properly restorable from a mount. Those had to be restored through the wizard.

When I said to try restoring, I meant use the actual Restore wizard. Open Reflect, go to Existing Backups, select the backup of interest, and click Restore. The wizard allows you to select specific content to restore. I don’t know if that will restore data streams, but you should be able to find out quickly. My point was simply that data streams not being available when the file is presented on a non-NTFS file system would be expected, and therefore not seeing them on a mount doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t be restored through a typical restore.

thanks again for the info

Excuse the intrusion, are these NTFS data streams the same as Alternate Data Streams (ADS)?  And my knowledge of ADS is limited.  From what I remember, is it essentially metadata for a file?

I am not familiar with ADS ----   the data streams for NTFS file are much like the PDS datasets on IBM mainframe computers ---- I   once explained it to a friend like this ---
think of the file on a NTFS drive as an apartment building where each apartment is a unique stream in the file

I think that the origins of  of data streams were connected to apple mac filesystems.  Files on a mac have "resource fork" unique to the data in the file itself.   
My guess is that Microsoft did this so that   fileservers running widows OS can also handle apple.mac files

Technically the additional data streams can contain entirely separate files, not just metadata. I remember tinkering around with this at one point, but the utility is limited because those alternate streams don’t stay with the file if it’s copied to a non-NTFS volume, attached to an email, or uploaded somewhere. So I personally found little use for them beyond tinkering.

+x

 

jphughan - 18 November 2023 5:20 PM

Technically the additional data streams can contain entirely separate files, not just metadata. I remember tinkering around with this at one point, but the utility is limited because those alternate streams don’t stay with the file if it’s copied to a non-NTFS volume, attached to an email, or uploaded somewhere. So I personally found little use for them beyond tinkering.

A big user of "streams" is the dropbox.exe on windows.  --   

I use the Dropbox  option to maintain my "documents" folder, but there was one sub-folder in that there was no need to have Dropbox save it to the cloud ---  Dropbox
has an "ignore"   option / flag --- there is an item in the Dropbox KB --- that show a power shell command to set the flag