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Defragmenting the MFT

Discussion in 'Windows XP' started by Christer, 2003/01/14.

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  1. 2003/01/14
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    If I remember correctly there has been a few discussions about this subject. It has been claimed not to be possible to defragment the MFT with the inherent tool. Third party software would have to be used.

    According to this webpage, http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/fileio/base/master_file_table.asp , that was true for Win2K but not for WinXP.
    I quote:

    The MFT could not be used for defragmentation under Windows 2000, but this restriction was removed in Windows XP and later. Also, the MFT itself can be defragmented. To reduce the chance of the MFT zone becoming fully allocated before the defragmentation process is complete, leave as much space at the beginning of the MFT zone as possible before defragmenting the volume. If the MFT zone becomes fully allocated before defragmentation has completed, there must be unallocated space outside of the MFT zone.

    end quote

    Since Norton Speed Disk utilizes the inherent defragmenter it should be able to do it as well.

    Have I got it all wrong?



    Christer
     
    Christer,
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  2. 2003/01/14
    Newt

    Newt Inactive

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    Norton Speed Disk has defragmented the MFT since Version 5.0 on both 2K and, I think, on NT4.

    The full version of Diskeeper will also defrag the MFT on 2K and above but only at boot time. OTOH, they claim to have a feature that will prevent fragmentation while the machine is running so it should work out about the same.

    The super-lite version of Diskeeper that shipped with 2K didn't touch the MFT at all.
     
    Newt,
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  4. 2003/01/15
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    Hello Newt, thanks for Your reply!

    If I´ve understood it correctly, WinXP reserves disk space for the MFT on each partition. The default value is 12.5 % of the volume but it can be increased by editing the register.
    Under some circumstances it was recommended to increase to 25 % to avoid fragmentation when the disk gets close to full.

    Would that be neccessary when e.g. Speed Disk can defragment the MFT?

    Since Speed Disk can move the PageFile to an optimum location I assume it can move the MFT to an optimum location as well.

    Now that Microsoft claims that WinXP has become smarter, is there a risk that WinXP and Norton will fight eachother?



    Regards,
    Christer
     
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  5. 2003/01/15
    Newt

    Newt Inactive

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    I read the information about the MFT the same way you describe.

    I use Norton and have for years. I always (well, after a disaster or two) stick with either the Norton defrag or the OS defrag. They seem to arrange things differently so it just seems like a good idea. But I started that with 9X and have just continued. I have no idea if XP would be safe to use them both and don't intend to find out.

    Limited experience with XP so far (since it is a young OS) and run Norton so no real idea if XP does, in fact, manage the MFT as advertised. But according to what I read, the user may be safe just using the native tools.

    I also use and like a free app from www.sysinternals.com called pagefiledefrag that will show you the status of all the registry hives and can be set to defrag them at next reboot or at every reboot. So far I've been impressed with the way my work XP-pro SP1 box has kept hive fragmentation to a minimum but have still used pagefiledefrag to clean things up a couple of times. I do not run Norton on this machine.

    Several times on 2K servers w/o Norton, I've run into an MFT problem that prevented the server from booting up. Found a nice little free app that will defrag the thing at boot time but it demands several SP6 files in order to allow the box to restart. NT Loader and NT hardware detector files as I remember it.
     
    Newt,
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  6. 2003/01/16
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    Thanks for Your comments, they were interesting to read.

    You´re not the only person on this board who give warnings for alternate use of different defrag tools. I suspected that it might cause conflicts so, once I decided to go Norton for its SwapFile management, I never used the native defrag tool again.

    I´ve learned on the Symantec support webpages that later Norton Speed Disk versions, compatible with WinXP, do not have their own defrag engine (or what it´s called) but use the native defrag engine.
    This is in order not to get conflicts so, I don´t know why I asked that question when I knew the answer ...... it must have been late ...... or early?

    Thanks for the link to Sysinternals, I didn´t understand half of it but, someday, maybe I will.

    You say that You don´t use Norton on Your work box, should I understand that as Speed Disk and PageDefrag shouldn´t be used in parallel?



    Christer
     
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  7. 2003/01/17
    Newt

    Newt Inactive

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    Not at all. Pagefiledefrag has proven safe for me with any NT OS and regardless of what else was loaded. Running fine work and home.

    My work system is in sort of a strange situation for me. Most of the XP boxes being rolled out are "fully managed" and the user can use but not install anything. Mine is semi-managed which according to the folks who control these assets means I can install any app I need to/want to as long as it doesn't duplicate & replace something they already have on here. I even have a local admin account just for that purpose.

    I'm in North Carolina and the central IT shop is in New York so I can't stop by and try to reason with those folks. And they do a lot of push-changes at logon plus run an asset management app so I can't even sneak something in. So, no Norton. And lots of other things as well. I tried adding my domain account to the local admin group. Works fine until I reboot at which point it is gone (but I can add it back). Same with a home page change and with a few reg entries I've done. Reboot and Poof - gone.
     
    Newt,
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  8. 2003/01/19
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    Okey, thanks again!



    Christer
     
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  9. 2003/01/22
    Abraxas

    Abraxas Inactive

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    For what it's worth----
    I've used Diskeeper for several months and used its boot-defrag option around 15 times. It has always skipped the MFT defrag, saying that it is unfragmented. I assume from this that a fragmented MFT is unusual.
     
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  10. 2003/01/23
    Christer

    Christer Geek Member Staff Thread Starter

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    I don´t know to what percentage Your HDD is utilized but I´ve heard (read) that fragmentation of the MFT accelerates when the HDD gets utilized closer to its capacity.
     
    Christer,
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  11. 2003/01/23
    Abraxas

    Abraxas Inactive

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    About 30% of the 30 gig system partition. Thanks for the info. I'll watch as it fills.

    I've made no change to the default size of the MFT and it looks like only about 5% of the reserved space is used.
     
    Last edited: 2003/01/23
    Abraxas,
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