WinXP & NTFS & MFT

[zm2002]

Good Day,

I heard that the disk defragmenter that cames with WinXP does not defragments the Master File Table (MFT) of NTFS partition. Also I stated that it defrags my disk, but in the graphic representation of the occupancy, my system ends up with data (i think) in the middle of the partition.

The question I want to ask is:

[1] Will Norton System Works (Speeddisk) defragment the MFT?

[2] Will it arrange all the data to the beginning of the disk so I can safely partition my 120Gb disk to a 20Gb + 100Gb partitions with Partition Magic 8?

[3] Will Partition Magic 8 do the job fine?

Thanks Allot!
ZM

 

[Derango]

Partitionmagic will work fine...It will move the data for you.

 

[sechs]

If SDNT does a boot-time defragmentation, it could defragment those file system structures. I don't think that it does; even if it did, I don't suggest it, as it is a positively awful program.

I'd suggest something more along the lines of Diskeeper or Perfectdisk. I personally use Prefectdisk, from Raxco, because it also optimizes the location of files. You also may wish to check out the system file defragmenter, which is free from Sysinterals.

If you want to change the partitioning using PM, you don't need to compact your files, as PM will move any necessary files during the partition shrink.

One more thing to note: The MFT is always in two extents, so don't worry if it has two fragments -- it's supposed to be that way.