A method for performing a write operation to a hard drive or other memory space is provided. The hard drive is represented as at least two files. The first file is a parent drive and includes some content of the hard drive. Writes made to the hard drive are recorded in a second file, known as a differencing drive. Because no changes are made to the content of the parent drive, the content of the hard drive may be rolled back to the content of the parent drive by discarding the differencing drive.