MFT

[anon]

Is there any way to move the MFT from one place on a hard drive to another?

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi anon,

Is there any way to move the MFT from one place on a hard drive to
another?

Not that I know of, no.

why?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[R. McCarty]

Perfect Disk 6/7 will do an Off-Line defrag which positions the
MFT at the middle section of a partition.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi R. McCarty,

Perfect Disk 6/7 will do an Off-Line defrag which positions the
MFT at the middle section of a partition.

I'm aware that it can defrag the MFT, but not that it can move it. Have you
any supporting documentation?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[R. McCarty]

Rick,
Read the following, scroll to MFT Placement. I done this numerous
times and can verify that it re-positions the MFT.
http://www.raxco.com/products/perfectdisk2k/whitepapers/Unique_Differences_PD7_DK9.pdf

 

[Richard Urban]

Selectively? No!

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

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

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

I saw that paper, and it mentions that it repositions the MFT for earlier NT
systems (Win2K, WinNT4) that had the MFT placed at the beginning of the
drive. WinXP's drive tools already place it at a more optimal postition, so
movement is not necessary. Having used PD for a number of years, I've not
seen anything in it that allows the user to move the MFT.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[R. McCarty]

Using Perfect Disk 7. Right Click on any Volume from the listing.
Left Click Properties. From the Details box click "Offline Defrag
Settings". You'll notice an option box entitled "System Files (
Master File Table (MFT) Metadata & Hibernate". This must be
checked for an Offline Defrag to optimize the MFT.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

Optimize (defrag), yes - move, no, or at least not as far as I know.
However, there is someone at raxco I know whom I can ask.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[frodo]

Hi,

Optimize (defrag), yes - move, no, or at least not as far as I know.
However, there is someone at raxco I know whom I can ask.

In the course of defragging it will move the mft, hence the recommendation
that you do a normal defrag first, to open up the free space, before doing
the offline defrag; then it'll move the mft out into the open area of the
disk. it also places the mft reserved zone right after the mft, as you
would logically expect [assuming there is a large enough free space to
begin with; if the drive is more than 50% full then all bets are off, and
it'll do the best it can]. it does pretty much the same thing w/ the
pagefile, moving it out into the middle of the disk if possible.

 

[Dilip]

Given the fact that the MFT closely resembles an 'index' of the NTFS
partition information, putting it intentionally on another place of the HD,
especially on another partition is out of the question. Within the same
partition PD may play its tricks, but I must concur that anything more
selective is currently not possible

 

[Guest]

Optimize (defrag), yes - move, no, or at least not as far as I know.
However, there is someone at raxco I know whom I can ask.

By now Raxco has probably responded, but the answer is definitely yes. And
that's a problem if your computer has a huge hard drive, as mine does.
PerfectDisk moves the MFT zone 1/3 of the way inside a hard disk, apparently
regardless of its size. That's fine if your hard drive is around 15-20 GB.
When it is 250 GB, as mine is, it is a huge problem. My MFT zone is now
about 80 GB away from where Microsoft actually recommends it should be (about
3-5 GB inside the disk). In fact, I just posted a new question here asking
if (short of reformatting) anyone knows how to move it back to 3-5 GB inside
the disk. I'm thinking that it's a complex operation, probably involving an
obscure registry entry or even fsutil commands. But I would love to know
what the method is, if it exists.

Ken

 

[CS]

By now Raxco has probably responded, but the answer is definitely yes. And
that's a problem if your computer has a huge hard drive, as mine does.
PerfectDisk moves the MFT zone 1/3 of the way inside a hard disk, apparently
regardless of its size. That's fine if your hard drive is around 15-20 GB.
When it is 250 GB, as mine is, it is a huge problem. My MFT zone is now
about 80 GB away from where Microsoft actually recommends it should be (about
3-5 GB inside the disk). In fact, I just posted a new question here asking
if (short of reformatting) anyone knows how to move it back to 3-5 GB inside
the disk. I'm thinking that it's a complex operation, probably involving an
obscure registry entry or even fsutil commands. But I would love to know
what the method is, if it exists.

Ken

That recommendation is an old one when HDDs were not as large as
yours. Frankly I would think Raxco is more informed as to where the
MFT should be than MS. Remember, the MFT is designed to grow -
placing it where you wish will probably cause more fragmentation than
where Perfectdisk put it. As you say, you can always reformat and
start over but why even worry about it? Has it impacted in any way on
the performance of your HDD?

 

[Guest]

[Microsoft's] recommendation [to put the MFT Zone 3-5 GB inside the disk] is an > old one when HDDs were not as large as yours. Frankly I would think Raxco is
more informed as to where the MFT should be than MS.

I'm not so sure. The MFT, by design, is in two fragments. My understanding
is that the first MFT fragment is at the beginning of the disk. The second
fragment is the first file in the MFT zone. NTFS needs to read both
fragments to create, modify, or update actual MFT entries and then locate the
files associated with these entries. It needs to do this each time XP uses
the hard drive. By design, the twp MTF fragments are only 3-5 GB apart, and
usually in the middle of the remaining files that XP uses most often. But on
my hard drive, the two MFT fragments are now 80 GB apart, and the second
fragment is much further away from the rest of the files.

Remember, the MFT is designed to grow -
placing it where you wish will probably cause more fragmentation than
where Perfectdisk put it. As you say, you can always reformat and
start over but why even worry about it? Has it impacted in any way on
the performance of your HDD?

Just barely, and I don't know how to measure the difference, but I notice
it. And only on that hard drive. I have a second computer with a smaller
hard drive where I don't notice any difference at all.