chains

A chain is a series of linked objects, either physical or metaphysical. Physical chains are usually made of metal (such as iron or steel), although they can be made of anything (such as a paper chain or a daisy chain). Metaphysical chains can be comprised of anything, from ideas and concepts to sections of program code. See also chain and chain mail.

Chains are also pointers that link clusters together in the file allocation tables on your hard drive. When you perform a disk check (using items like ScanDisk or DisKeeper), you may see the message that you have XX lost chains or clusters.