Disclosed is a method for creating and reading a contiguous file in an extensible file system. During the creation of a file on the storage media, the file system format check the bitmap to determine if there are areas of free space on the media that would permit the storage of the file in a contiguous manner. By storing the file in a contiguous manner the file may later be read without resorting to the file allocation table, because the file itself would not be fragmented on the storage media. Once an area of free space has been identified, the file is written to the media in a contiguous manner. Further, an associated entry for the file in the directory entry is updated or created to indicate that the file is a contiguous file and also provides basic parameters necessary to read the file without resorting to accessing the file allocation table.