Is there a way to defrag the MFT file and inode data?

Antonio Perez wrote:

SoCalCommie wrote previously in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardwa

"Antonio Perez" wrote in message

No... the 'real solution' is to stop worring about 'fragments'. Does your
system run faster after using the various 'tools'. If you answer yes...
you're suffering from the placibo effect.

My previous post was incomplete.

What/who/where does it say that I want/need/wish to make my computer faster?

The reasons for this request are only mine, if you were so kind to ask I
might have told you.

But the arrogance to assume what I need/should/must do is yours only.

What power/status/condition makes my opinion less
valuable/important/relevant than yours?

Is it just plain arrogance to believe/think/feel that you have the truth?

I asked correctly for help. if you want to help, do so, if not do leave.

And, in the end, It's MY computer, I'll do as I see fit.

No one asks a question for no reason. There is always an impetus.
Knowing the impetus allows a respondent to focus on that instead of
wandering all over their entire gamut of MFT knowledge.

If you asked for the correct tire pressure, there would be a purpose or
goal to your question. Maybe you want the best mileage and don't care
about heat. Maybe you're concerned about the compound used for the tire
and are concerned about heat at high speeds to ensure you don't blow the
tire apart with excessive heat. Maybe you want best traction on dry
tar. Maybe you want the best use in soft snow. Maybe you haven't a
real clue why you asked but something else prodded you into asking
because you suddenly thought it was important to know a fact without
knowing its applicability.

There was a reason for your query. You choose not to divulge. You got
prodded to divulge your reason. You still refused. Respondents can
GUESS why you asked but it could help immensely in knowing WHY you
asked. Otherwise, why bother asking here when you could've Googled for
every article discussing the topic if you didn't want to focus on WHY
you would need to defragment the MFT or HOW it might affect any
performance measure (which is still a vague topic without knowing what
measurements you expected)? Presumably you asked here to get something
more than what you found through casual searches at Google and perhaps
at Microsoft's support knowledgebase.

VanguardLH wrote previously in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardwa

Once the free sectors beyond the reserved MFT space gets consumed,
additional files will start consuming the "reserved" MFT space....
[big snip]

You are missing completely the point here, the explanation i've read in
painful detail somewhere else.

The point is: What to do _after_ is fragmented...

VanguardLH wrote previously in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardwa

Antonio Perez wrote:

SoCalCommie wrote previously in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardwa

"Antonio Perez" wrote in message

No... the 'real solution' is to stop worring about 'fragments'. Does
your system run faster after using the various 'tools'. If you answer
yes... you're suffering from the placibo effect.

My previous post was incomplete.

What/who/where does it say that I want/need/wish to make my computer
faster?

The reasons for this request are only mine, if you were so kind to ask I
might have told you.

But the arrogance to assume what I need/should/must do is yours only.

What power/status/condition makes my opinion less
valuable/important/relevant than yours?

Is it just plain arrogance to believe/think/feel that you have the truth?

I asked correctly for help. if you want to help, do so, if not do leave.

And, in the end, It's MY computer, I'll do as I see fit.



No one asks a question for no reason.

And nobody posts a response without a reason. What is it for you?
Just make fun on others?

There is always an impetus.
Knowing the impetus allows a respondent to focus on that instead of
wandering all over their entire gamut of MFT knowledge.

[ a lot of yabba dabba]

The question was plain simple. Example:
Q: How to press a button?
A: Put your finger on it an exert pressure till it moves downward.

Could you stop being complex and exotic and give a simple answer to the
question?

No, I suppose that's not your nature.

There was a reason for your query. You choose not to divulge.

You never asked!!!!!!!!!!

You got prodded to divulge your reason. You still refused.

I never refused, I was never asked, but now I choose to specifically and
completelly not tell it to _you_

Respondents can GUESS why you asked but it could help immensely in knowing
WHY you asked. Otherwise, why bother asking here when you could've
Googled

Oh, I googled it in a lot of ways, don't assume incompetence, would you?

for every article discussing the topic if you didn't want to focus on WHY
you would need to defragment the MFT or HOW it might affect any
performance measure (which is still a vague topic without knowing what
measurements you expected)?

Ok, if you absolutely need a reason: because I want a unfragmented MFT.

Is it so alien to your way of thinking?

Presumably you asked here to get something
more than what you found through casual searches at Google and perhaps
at Microsoft's support knowledgebase.

Yes, absolutely, i wanted a clear and knowledged answer.
Something like:
sorry that's not possible.
or:
Do this and then do that.

Not a lot of dumbo-jumbo.

For an example look at JS first answer, clear and to the point, that's it.

VanguardLH wrote previously in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardwa

JS wrote:

Well, the method of displaying the files is virtually identical and I
think that the built in Windows defragmenter is the old "Diskeeper Lite"
version they had years ago.

Use a hex editor on defrag.exe included in Windows. You'll find the
string "LegalCopyright 2001 Microsoft Corp. and Executive Software".
Executive Software changed their name for Diskeeper Corp in July 2005
(http://redmondmag.com/news/article.a...orialsid=6792).

Microsoft gets lots of their utilities from 3rd parties, or they end up
acquiring them.

If both tools are from the same source. Why do they report conflicting info?

Which is wrong here? Both?

JS @ wrote previously in microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardwa

Read this article: http://www.tweakxp.com/article37043.aspx

Basically your are going to make changes to the registry
(so create a restore point and/or registry backup)
Copy your files to another drive or partition.
Reformat the partition.
Copy the files back.

JS

Ok, tried that, MFT in only one string. Thanks.

So, there is no other way to do it?

Antonio Perez wrote:

VanguardLH wrote previously in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardwa

JS wrote:

Well, the method of displaying the files is virtually identical and I
think that the built in Windows defragmenter is the old "Diskeeper Lite"
version they had years ago.

Use a hex editor on defrag.exe included in Windows. You'll find the
string "LegalCopyright 2001 Microsoft Corp. and Executive Software".
Executive Software changed their name for Diskeeper Corp in July 2005
(http://redmondmag.com/news/article.a...orialsid=6792).

Microsoft gets lots of their utilities from 3rd parties, or they end up
acquiring them.

If both tools are from the same source. Why do they report conflicting info?

Which is wrong here? Both?

One is a crippled version with behavior dictated by Microsoft. The
other is a non-crippled version without control by Microsoft so
Diskeeper has it perform how they want. Microsoft has their "best"
rules on defragmentation to ensure reliability over a wide range of user
hosts with minimal configuration options. Diskeeper can do whatever it
wants with their unfettered commercial version. The Microsoft version
is really old, like around 8 years, or more. Back then, the Microsoft
contracted version and Diskeeper were probably more alike than they are
now. One was stagnant, the other had revenue to support continued
development. One makes no money, the other must have SOMETHING
different to qualify why you should spend money on it.

Antonio Perez wrote:

VanguardLH wrote previously in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardwa

Once the free sectors beyond the reserved MFT space gets consumed,
additional files will start consuming the "reserved" MFT space....
[big snip]

You are missing completely the point here, the explanation i've read in
painful detail somewhere else.

The point is: What to do _after_ is fragmented...

After all that work, and assuming you increased the
NtfsMftZoneReservation before reformatting the partition, when you run
defrag.msc and run Analyze to look at the report, what is the value for
"Percent MFT in use"?

Was all this effort for a data-only partition? Or did you somehow do
all this for the partition containing Windows?

How often is the MFT file a really significant size in terms of the size
of modern hard drives.

The size of the of the MFT file on my 24 gb windows partitition is 79
mb!


~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VanguardLH wrote:
Antonio Perez wrote:

VanguardLH wrote previously in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardwa

Once the free sectors beyond the reserved MFT space gets consumed,
additional files will start consuming the "reserved" MFT space....
[big snip]

You are missing completely the point here, the explanation i've read
in painful detail somewhere else.

The point is: What to do _after_ is fragmented...

After all that work, and assuming you increased the
NtfsMftZoneReservation before reformatting the partition, when you run
defrag.msc and run Analyze to look at the report, what is the value
for "Percent MFT in use"?

Was all this effort for a data-only partition? Or did you somehow do
all this for the partition containing Windows?

It's not.

And if you were using FAT32 instead of NTFS and had the same files as Gerry
has on his partition then you would really see some significant
fragmentation (not reported but the fragmentation is there) because of the
folders splattered all over the partition and the way some defragmentation
tools ignore folder clusters and sandwiched a single file between three of
four folders.

JS

"Gerry" wrote in message
...
How often is the MFT file a really significant size in terms of the size
of modern hard drives.

The size of the of the MFT file on my 24 gb windows partitition is 79 mb!


~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VanguardLH wrote:
Antonio Perez wrote:

VanguardLH wrote previously in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardwa

Once the free sectors beyond the reserved MFT space gets consumed,
additional files will start consuming the "reserved" MFT space....
[big snip]

You are missing completely the point here, the explanation i've read
in painful detail somewhere else.

The point is: What to do _after_ is fragmented...

After all that work, and assuming you increased the
NtfsMftZoneReservation before reformatting the partition, when you run
defrag.msc and run Analyze to look at the report, what is the value
for "Percent MFT in use"?

Was all this effort for a data-only partition? Or did you somehow do
all this for the partition containing Windows?

JS

Not many users of Windows XP would find choosing FAT 32 over NTFS a
better choice. There is no MFT file in FAT32. MFT is a product of NTFS!
I am not sure why you have introduced FAT32 to this debate.

The originator of this thread refers to "inode data".
"A data structure holding information about files in a Unix file system.
There is an inode for each file and a file is uniquely identified by the
file system on which it resides and its inode number on that system.
Each inode contains the following information: the device where the
inode resides, locking information, mode and type of file, the number of
links to the file, the owner's user and group ids, the number of bytes
in the file, access and modification times, the time the inode itself
was last modified and the addresses of the file's blocks on disk. A Unix
directory is an association between file leafnames and inode numbers. A
file's inode number can be found using the "-i" switch to ls."
source: tldp.org/LDP/sag/html/glossary.html

Inode data seems to be specific to Unix not Windows! Odd that it should
be mentioned in the Subject of this thread.



~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JS wrote:
It's not.

And if you were using FAT32 instead of NTFS and had the same files as
Gerry has on his partition then you would really see some significant
fragmentation (not reported but the fragmentation is there) because
of the folders splattered all over the partition and the way some
defragmentation tools ignore folder clusters and sandwiched a single
file between three of four folders.

JS

"Gerry" wrote in message
...
How often is the MFT file a really significant size in terms of the
size of modern hard drives.

The size of the of the MFT file on my 24 gb windows partitition is
79 mb! ~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VanguardLH wrote:
Antonio Perez wrote:

VanguardLH wrote previously in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardwa

Once the free sectors beyond the reserved MFT space gets consumed,
additional files will start consuming the "reserved" MFT space....
[big snip]

You are missing completely the point here, the explanation i've
read in painful detail somewhere else.

The point is: What to do _after_ is fragmented...

After all that work, and assuming you increased the
NtfsMftZoneReservation before reformatting the partition, when you
run defrag.msc and run Analyze to look at the report, what is the
value for "Percent MFT in use"?

Was all this effort for a data-only partition? Or did you somehow
do all this for the partition containing Windows?

Only mentioned FAT in an effort to say that defragmenting a NTFS partition
is far more effective in really reducing the number of fragmented files then
worrying about an MFT split into 3 parts.

JS

"Gerry" wrote in message
...
JS

Not many users of Windows XP would find choosing FAT 32 over NTFS a better
choice. There is no MFT file in FAT32. MFT is a product of NTFS! I am not
sure why you have introduced FAT32 to this debate.

The originator of this thread refers to "inode data".
"A data structure holding information about files in a Unix file system.
There is an inode for each file and a file is uniquely identified by the
file system on which it resides and its inode number on that system. Each
inode contains the following information: the device where the inode
resides, locking information, mode and type of file, the number of links
to the file, the owner's user and group ids, the number of bytes in the
file, access and modification times, the time the inode itself was last
modified and the addresses of the file's blocks on disk. A Unix directory
is an association between file leafnames and inode numbers. A file's inode
number can be found using the "-i" switch to ls."
source: tldp.org/LDP/sag/html/glossary.html

Inode data seems to be specific to Unix not Windows! Odd that it should be
mentioned in the Subject of this thread.



~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JS wrote:
It's not.

And if you were using FAT32 instead of NTFS and had the same files as
Gerry has on his partition then you would really see some significant
fragmentation (not reported but the fragmentation is there) because
of the folders splattered all over the partition and the way some
defragmentation tools ignore folder clusters and sandwiched a single
file between three of four folders.

JS

"Gerry" wrote in message
...
How often is the MFT file a really significant size in terms of the
size of modern hard drives.

The size of the of the MFT file on my 24 gb windows partitition is
79 mb! ~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VanguardLH wrote:
Antonio Perez wrote:

VanguardLH wrote previously in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardwa

Once the free sectors beyond the reserved MFT space gets consumed,
additional files will start consuming the "reserved" MFT space....
[big snip]

You are missing completely the point here, the explanation i've
read in painful detail somewhere else.

The point is: What to do _after_ is fragmented...

After all that work, and assuming you increased the
NtfsMftZoneReservation before reformatting the partition, when you
run defrag.msc and run Analyze to look at the report, what is the
value for "Percent MFT in use"?

Was all this effort for a data-only partition? Or did you somehow
do all this for the partition containing Windows?

JS

With Windows 98 it was much more of a game trying to ensure Disk
Defragmenter was not constantly restarting. Of course safe mode was the
answer. Occasionally people still recommend defragmenting in safe mode
but I have never seen the need to do so in Windows XP.


~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


JS wrote:
Only mentioned FAT in an effort to say that defragmenting a NTFS
partition is far more effective in really reducing the number of
fragmented files then worrying about an MFT split into 3 parts.

JS

"Gerry" wrote in message
...
JS

Not many users of Windows XP would find choosing FAT 32 over NTFS a
better choice. There is no MFT file in FAT32. MFT is a product of
NTFS! I am not sure why you have introduced FAT32 to this debate.

The originator of this thread refers to "inode data".
"A data structure holding information about files in a Unix file
system. There is an inode for each file and a file is uniquely
identified by the file system on which it resides and its inode
number on that system. Each inode contains the following
information: the device where the inode resides, locking
information, mode and type of file, the number of links to the file,
the owner's user and group ids, the number of bytes in the file,
access and modification times, the time the inode itself was last
modified and the addresses of the file's blocks on disk. A Unix
directory is an association between file leafnames and inode
numbers. A file's inode number can be found using the "-i" switch to
ls." source: tldp.org/LDP/sag/html/glossary.html

Inode data seems to be specific to Unix not Windows! Odd that it
should be mentioned in the Subject of this thread.



~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JS wrote:
It's not.

And if you were using FAT32 instead of NTFS and had the same files
as Gerry has on his partition then you would really see some
significant fragmentation (not reported but the fragmentation is
there) because of the folders splattered all over the partition and
the way some defragmentation tools ignore folder clusters and
sandwiched a single file between three of four folders.

JS

"Gerry" wrote in message
...
How often is the MFT file a really significant size in terms of the
size of modern hard drives.

The size of the of the MFT file on my 24 gb windows partitition is
79 mb! ~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VanguardLH wrote:
Antonio Perez wrote:

VanguardLH wrote previously in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardwa

Once the free sectors beyond the reserved MFT space gets
consumed, additional files will start consuming the "reserved"
MFT space.... [big snip]

You are missing completely the point here, the explanation i've
read in painful detail somewhere else.

The point is: What to do _after_ is fragmented...

After all that work, and assuming you increased the
NtfsMftZoneReservation before reformatting the partition, when you
run defrag.msc and run Analyze to look at the report, what is the
value for "Percent MFT in use"?

Was all this effort for a data-only partition? Or did you somehow
do all this for the partition containing Windows?

"Gerry" wrote in message
...
How often is the MFT file a really significant size in terms of the size
of modern hard drives.

The size of the of the MFT file on my 24 gb windows partitition is 79 mb!


~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VanguardLH wrote:
Antonio Perez wrote:

VanguardLH wrote previously in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardwa

Once the free sectors beyond the reserved MFT space gets consumed,
additional files will start consuming the "reserved" MFT space....
[big snip]

You are missing completely the point here, the explanation i've read
in painful detail somewhere else.

The point is: What to do _after_ is fragmented...

After all that work, and assuming you increased the
NtfsMftZoneReservation before reformatting the partition, when you run
defrag.msc and run Analyze to look at the report, what is the value
for "Percent MFT in use"?

Was all this effort for a data-only partition? Or did you somehow do
all this for the partition containing Windows?



Here is what Windows XP defrag reports on my 1 TB drive (2 500 GB Raid 0):

Volume QJMP6600_1H (H
Volume size = 932 GB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 926 GB
Free space = 5.97 GB
Percent free space = 0 %

Volume fragmentation
Total fragmentation = 0 %
File fragmentation = 0 %
Free space fragmentation = 0 %

File fragmentation
Total files = 2,351
Average file size = 444 MB
Total fragmented files = 1
Total excess fragments = 1
Average fragments per file = 1.00

Pagefile fragmentation
Pagefile size = 0 bytes
Total fragments = 0

Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 455
Fragmented folders = 1
Excess folder fragments = 0

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 3 MB
MFT record count = 2,821
Percent MFT in use = 99 %
Total MFT fragments = 2

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fragments File Size Most fragmented files
2 1,024 MB
\DVDs\National_Treasure_2\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_4.VOB

Of course they are all large files (ripped DVDs).

--
SoCalCommie
http://so-la-i.com/

WARNING: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security Agency
may have read this message without warning, warrant, or notice. They may do
this without any judicial or legislative oversight.

The average file size on my my windows partition is 404 kb (49,622
files). Your's, albeit not a windows patrtition, is 444 mb (2,821
files). So there's quite a difference between them G.



~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SoCalCommie wrote:
"Gerry" wrote in message
...
How often is the MFT file a really significant size in terms of the
size of modern hard drives.

The size of the of the MFT file on my 24 gb windows partitition is
79 mb! ~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VanguardLH wrote:
Antonio Perez wrote:

VanguardLH wrote previously in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardwa

Once the free sectors beyond the reserved MFT space gets consumed,
additional files will start consuming the "reserved" MFT space....
[big snip]

You are missing completely the point here, the explanation i've
read in painful detail somewhere else.

The point is: What to do _after_ is fragmented...

After all that work, and assuming you increased the
NtfsMftZoneReservation before reformatting the partition, when you
run defrag.msc and run Analyze to look at the report, what is the
value for "Percent MFT in use"?

Was all this effort for a data-only partition? Or did you somehow
do all this for the partition containing Windows?



Here is what Windows XP defrag reports on my 1 TB drive (2 500 GB
Raid 0):
Volume QJMP6600_1H (H
Volume size = 932 GB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 926 GB
Free space = 5.97 GB
Percent free space = 0 %

Volume fragmentation
Total fragmentation = 0 %
File fragmentation = 0 %
Free space fragmentation = 0 %

File fragmentation
Total files = 2,351
Average file size = 444 MB
Total fragmented files = 1
Total excess fragments = 1
Average fragments per file = 1.00

Pagefile fragmentation
Pagefile size = 0 bytes
Total fragments = 0

Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 455
Fragmented folders = 1
Excess folder fragments = 0

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 3 MB
MFT record count = 2,821
Percent MFT in use = 99 %
Total MFT fragments = 2

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fragments File Size Most fragmented files
2 1,024 MB
\DVDs\National_Treasure_2\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_4.VOB

Of course they are all large files (ripped DVDs).