It turns out that the NTFS file system can have several "data streams" (pieces of data) attached to a file. The main "data stream" is what is usually considered the file contents (not sure about the exact terminology here...), but there may be additional pieces of information about the file, of arbitrary size - these would be the alternative data streams. In theory, a file can appear to have zero bytes, or only a few bytes, but hide gigabytes of information in such an alternate data stream.
>Recently when trying to copy files from a folder I get a message
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>Confirm Stream Loss
>"The file "MYFOLDER" has extra information attached to it that might be lost if continue copying.
>The contents of the file will not be affected. Information that might be lost includes:
>:MYFILE.DBF:$DATA
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>Note that DATA is a name of the folder in the MYFOLDERNAME.
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>Is there anything I can do to fix this problem? Is this really a serious problem?
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>Thank you in advance for any suggestions.
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
