MFT Size

[Al Kaufmann]

My disk defragmenter warns that my Master File Table on my drive C: is
nearly full 89%. Unfortunately it does not offer any solution. I have done
a bit of research but there seems to be no solution to this problem that
does not involve formatting the drive.

Should I even worry about this warning? How much will a fragment MFT slow
my file system?

Al

 

[Peter]

You can configure MFT size using a proprietary defarg such as Diskeeper 10
Pro.
May help to do s Start/Run enter chkdsk /r (with the space) and enter.
It'll ask you if you want it to run next boot, say yes.
If you have more than one partition then specify the drive chkdsk C: /r

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Al

You do not need to worry about the Master File Table. If it needs
to get bigger it gets bigger. The MFT file can be 2 or 3 fragments.
If you get more than 3 then that may be a cause for concern. Due
to the way the MFT file is written you will not see a single
contiguous file.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Al Kaufmann]

You can defragment MFT using diskeeper 10 but I have not found a way to
increase the size, MS XP increases the file size as required. Microsoft
does allow you to set a variable in the registry which will specify how much
of the drive is reserved when you first create or format the partition.

I did not have this warning until I moved a bunch of data files to drive c:
because that is where a poorly written driver wants them.

Al

 

[Al Kaufmann]

Yes, I think I will just forget about that warning too. I will just do a
boot time de-frag on that file every so often.

Thanks
Al

 

[Peter]

With DK10 you can "pad" the MFT to prevent it becoming fragmented. Getting
Started/Configure Diskeeper/Diskeeper Configuration Properties/Fragshield

 

[Al Kaufmann]

Thanks telling me that, it worked great and Diskeeper 10 now reports my
drive as healthy.

Al

 

[Peter]

You're welcome.