I have a computer here that has a 98% used MFT and understandably has fragmented, making for all manner of wonky performance issues. The odd thing is, the drive is only about 75% full. I have already maxed the MFT size via the registry edit with no effect. Diskeeper10 reported and corrected the 28 MFT fragments :eek: as well as claiming to correct unused MFT space reported as used but it only gave me back like 2%.
The machine has TONS of photos on it. I would imagine that dumping a bunch of them to CD/DVD would help but I was wondering if there is any file organization strategies that may reduce the MFT impact?
TY
XP home SP2
and for reference
Volume (C:)
Volume size = 74.52 GB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 8.72 GB
Free space = 65.80 GB
Percent free space = 88 %
Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 69 MB
MFT record count = 56,805
Percent MFT in use = 80 %
Total MFT fragments = 2
thats after dumping internet temp files and cookies
doing the reg edit at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Filesystem\NtfsMftZoneReservation does not seem to have any effect even after a reboot.
I’m trying to dump all the personal pix to DVD’s to unload some of the raw file count.
I’m looking for help mainly because I was wondering if any dopers have a more nuts and bolts understanding of NTFS MFT than myself.
Win2000 had a place to change the size of the MFT. I was under the impression that XP expands it as needed. I would expect XP to only enlarge it when needed.
I’ve found this little utilty handy. Run it to defrag you OS files that need to be defraged before you use the OS, that includes the MTF. The download link is at the bottom of the page. PageDefrag
I would use a cluster size of 512 on a NTFS drive in the future when formating the partition. On a large drive having to save small files to 4k instead of 512 wastes a lot of storage space. Use the chkdsk c: /x command at the command prompt to schedule a disk check for errors on start up. You can use the same command for the other drive letters. It will force the volumes to dismount and be check right then, if it can. Drives that can’t dismount for the check will be scheduled to do so at the next boot if you type y when asked.
Command promt is entered by using the run box from the start menu and typing and running cmd or cmd.exe
Type exit to exit the command prompt.
Please let me know if this program did wait you wanted.