Large unusable area on NTFS volume

[Guest]

The problem is this instance is that XP has marked out about half of a 250 GB
drive as either "bad sectors" or "system files", depending on which utility
is looking at it. This area cannot be accessed nor used presently.

In fact, I have verified that this area of the drive is NOT bad, and the
drive has no physical damage whatever, by ghosting the current XP install to
another drive, formatting the drive, and running extensive diagnostics on it.
The drive is formatted as NTFS. This situation arose after a motherboard
change (different chipset) and immediate repair install of XP as suggested by
many sources.

I have, so far:

1. Attempted the usual repairs by booting from the XP CD and using the
recovery console.

2. Attempted to use a fairly complex Linux procedure as described at
http://www.bodden.de - this failed.

3. Attempted to convert the volume to FAT32 with Partition Magic so that I
could perform a bad sector retest. The volume will not convert.

4. Searched Google for months in hope of a solution without success.

5. Confirmed that the BIOS recognizes the drive at it's full size.

6. Confirmed that the Nvidia chipset drivers are in place and working.

7. Confirmed that the IDE controllers are working properly.

8. Used Partition Magic in "DOS" mode to try to rectify the problem in
various ways without success.

I have concluded that this is not a hardware problem and have verified this
repeatedly (unless I have missed something!).

I can, of course, fix this by formatting the drive and reinstalling all
applications. I would prefer not to do this, mainly because I'm a bit
stubborn and I want to find a more elegant solution to the problem.

The drive works perfectly, but I have a lot of unusable space as of now -
not good.

Thanks in advance for any and all help !

 

[Richard Urban]

It would help if you told us what Windows XP utility see this information
which way.


--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Star Fleet Admiral Q]

Open RegEdit
Navigate to the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem and see if a
DWORD named NtfsMftZoneReservation exists, if so and the number is something
other than 1, then that would explain the extra space reserved for system
use or as system files. A normal XP/2k/2k3 install will not have this key,
and the default of 1 is used, where if you have a large number of small
files, then a setting between 2 to 4 can be used, the larger the number, the
more space that will be reserved for the MFT.

 

[Guest]

Richard,

Thanks for responding. Chkdsk /r (from CD) and defrag report no bad
sectors, and characterize the area as "system files."

Partition Magic (from "DOS") sees it as bad, but won't fix it.

Norton Speedisk sees it as "system files."

______________________________________________________________

 

[Guest]

Thanks for responding!

I did as you suggested, and indeed that key was present with a value of "2".
I set the value to 1, and rebooted. Unfortunately, nothing changed in terms
of the available space. Did I miss something ? I guess I could delete the
key, but I am not sure of the effect of this.

___________________________________________________________________

 

[Richard Urban]

It "could" be that you are not using a version of Partition Magic that is
compatible with the latest NTFS file system. Version 7.01 (upgraded from
version 7.0) was the first version that was indicated by PowerQuest to be
usable. Version 8.0 was the first released version of P.M. that was
advertised to be designed for Windows XP. Since Symantec purchased
PowerQuest, they have brought P.M. up to version 8.05.

It could also be that there is a partition table error. Partition Magic will
find this while many other diagnostic programs will just gloss over the
problem because they can't handle it.

Get a version that is compatible before you start looking for problems that
may not exist..

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Guest]

Thanks for pointing this out, Richard. I am presently using PM version 8.02,
which I think should be ok, but I will upgrade to 8.05 and try again.

I will report my results here, of course. Many thanks for your continuing
help!

__________________________________________________________________

 

[Richard Urban]

I had partition table errors on one drive. Windows XP would still work. The
error was reporting an over lapping partition. This could cause data loss.
The only way to repair this error is to delete the offending partition and
create/format a new partition in the freed up area (after the original
partition has been deleted).

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Guest]

Richard, there is only one partition on this drive. Does that change
anything ?

 

[Kerry Brown]

The problem is this instance is that XP has marked out about half of a 250
GB
drive as either "bad sectors" or "system files", depending on which
utility
is looking at it. This area cannot be accessed nor used presently.

In fact, I have verified that this area of the drive is NOT bad, and the
drive has no physical damage whatever, by ghosting the current XP install
to
another drive, formatting the drive, and running extensive diagnostics on
it.
The drive is formatted as NTFS. This situation arose after a motherboard
change (different chipset) and immediate repair install of XP as suggested
by
many sources.

I have, so far:

1. Attempted the usual repairs by booting from the XP CD and using the
recovery console.

2. Attempted to use a fairly complex Linux procedure as described at
http://www.bodden.de - this failed.

3. Attempted to convert the volume to FAT32 with Partition Magic so that I
could perform a bad sector retest. The volume will not convert.

4. Searched Google for months in hope of a solution without success.

5. Confirmed that the BIOS recognizes the drive at it's full size.

6. Confirmed that the Nvidia chipset drivers are in place and working.

7. Confirmed that the IDE controllers are working properly.

8. Used Partition Magic in "DOS" mode to try to rectify the problem in
various ways without success.

I have concluded that this is not a hardware problem and have verified
this
repeatedly (unless I have missed something!).

I can, of course, fix this by formatting the drive and reinstalling all
applications. I would prefer not to do this, mainly because I'm a bit
stubborn and I want to find a more elegant solution to the problem.

The drive works perfectly, but I have a lot of unusable space as of now -
not good.

Thanks in advance for any and all help !

You are reaching the point of diminishing returns. I have seen this question
recently posted at least once before, presumably by you. At this point my
recommendation would be a full backup with ntbackup then format the drive,
reinstall Windows, and restore your backup. It's a pain but how much time
have you already spent on this? Sometimes there is no "elegant" solution. Of
course some people would consider using the built in Windows utilities to
fix a Windows problem "elegant"


Kerry

 

[Guest]

Kerry, I think I am far past the ppint of diminishing returns. The fact of
the matter is that I have put far more time into solving this than I would
have put into simply formatting and reinstalling everything. However - that
said - it's become a technical challenge for me in that I am hoping to
discover a way to solve this problem without using brute force. Since I'm an
engineer, I kind of like "elegant" solutions, and If I can find a way to
solve this, it may help others as well. One should not really have to format
an HD just because of a MB/chipset change.

 

[Guest]

Forgot to add - I have done what you suggested. The drive is totally clean
when formatted with no bad sectors identified, but when I restore from the
backup - that unusable area comes right back again.

 

[Richard Urban]

That changes a lot - no chance of partition errors exist. But you can have
file system errors.

At this point I would suggest that you download the drive check utility from
the manufacturer of your hard drive. They all have one. Run the test as per
their instructions. See if the drive passes.

You can also use Spinrite from http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm. It is NOT
free. I just had to run a test (using Spinrite 6.0) on a 160 gig hard drive.
The full test took over 35 hours. The drive came up clean and I have other
issues at play.


--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Guest]

Richard, tried PM 8.05 per your suggestion. Sorry to report this, but no joy.

 

[Kerry Brown]

Kerry, I think I am far past the ppint of diminishing returns. The fact
of
the matter is that I have put far more time into solving this than I would
have put into simply formatting and reinstalling everything. However -
that
said - it's become a technical challenge for me in that I am hoping to
discover a way to solve this problem without using brute force. Since I'm
an
engineer, I kind of like "elegant" solutions, and If I can find a way to
solve this, it may help others as well. One should not really have to
format
an HD just because of a MB/chipset change.

I upgrade several computers a month. When changing a motherboard the
procedure can be as easy as rebooting and letting Windows find the new
hardware to a clean install of Windows. The clean install is usually when
the two motherboards have different chipsets and other hardware is changed
at the same time.

Altering the file structure on the hard drive to fix a problem is brute
force in my mind. I would be worried about more problems in the future
caused by a shortcut now. A clean install is guaranteed to cause the least
problems even if it takes the longest. Elegant doesn't always mean shortest
or easiest. I thought engineers looked for solutions that lasted rather than
a quick fix to get by for now.

Cheers, Kerry

 

[Kerry Brown]

Forgot to add - I have done what you suggested. The drive is totally
clean
when formatted with no bad sectors identified, but when I restore from the
backup - that unusable area comes right back again.

Are you restoring a backup or an image? If you are restoring from a file
based backup such as ntbackup and you have overwritten track zero and
recreated the partition before the restore then something is wrong with the
drive or the motherboard controller. If you are restoring an image of the
drive that was taken while the problem existed then of course the problem
returns. An image includes the errors.

Kerry

 

[Zilbandy]

Since Symantec purchased
PowerQuest, they have brought P.M. up to version 8.05.

Do you know where to get an update to 8.05? I'm at version 8.01 and
can't find anything on Symantec's web site about updates to PM. Maybe
it's just me, but I've never been able to navigate Symantecs web site.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Richard. I have run the Maxtor utility on the drive, and it finds no
errors. I do have a copy of the latest version of Spinrite, and I can run
that (probably 80+ hours), but can Spinrite detect and correct file system
errors ?

 

[Richard Urban]

Buy it. Unless you purchase the Symantec version there will be no later
updates available to those who have the original ver 8.01 from PowerQuest.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[frodo]

2 cents:

1) the reg setting referred to mearly changes the default size of the "MFT
Reserved Zone". The default is 1, which sets aside 12.5% of the volumn
for this zone. 2 sets it to 25%. See here:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc_fil_xhpo.asp

this area of the volume is often labled "System Use" or "Reserved" by disk
utils and defragers. Don't let that disturb you tho. It is part of the
volume's free space.

2) this zone is only "reserved" in that XP will not place files there
unless it has no other choice. It is NOT "unusable". When the disk
starts to get full XP will put files there without problem.

The purpose of this zone it to reserve the disk segment contiguous w/ the
MFT, so that if the MFT ever needs to grow it can grow into the reserved
zone and therefore not become fragmented. The MFT almost never grows tho,
it's created pretty large initially, and will only grow if you add LOTS of
files to the volume.

I agreee, it's pretty silly of NTFS to do this, and it confuses people.
But, I simply would not worry about it!

You'll notice if you do a full-up defrag (including consolodating the mft)
that this area moves and/or resizes. Again, don't worry about it.