Boot Time Defrag Ineffective & MFT Reserved Issue

[eGaTS]

Running XP Pro with 2 GB RAM and a 300 GB HDD

 

The drive map is showing my page file is in 3 fragments scattered throughout the disk. I would prefer it to be in a contiguous piece towards the beginning of the drive. If Defraggler is capable of pushing the page file to the beginning of the drive, I have yet to find this feature. I did notice that the new version has incorporated a "Boot Time Defrag" feature that seems to mimic Sysinternals' PageDefrag.

 

My pagefile.sys is about 2 GB, and the drive had about 19 GB free, although the free space itself was fragmented. I was curious to see if the Boot Time Defrag was smart enough to consolidate free space before attempting to defrag the page file... turns out it wasn't. I chose Settings -> Boot Time Defrag -> Run Once, and clicked "Yes" to reboot. The familiar screen showed up, attempted to defrag the pagefile.sys and some event logs, although it flashed so quickly I wasn't able to read it. Note to developers: please offer an option to "Press any key to continue" so we don't have to go hunting for log files. Defraggler showed the pagefile was still in 3 fragments, but I hadn't really expected it to be that smart. Well, instead of attempting to defrag the free space (which would have taken a very long time) I found an 8.5 GB ISO file that was contiguous and moved it to an external drive. Defraggler clearly showed a large block of white on the drive map, which was plenty of space for the pagefile.sys to be put into.

 

Again, I did the Boot Time Defrag, but when XP came back up, Defraggler was showing the pagefile.sys still being in 3 fragments! Not only that, but now that big white block where I deleted the ISO file is now purple, claiming to be "Reserved MFT space". Why the heck would my MFT reserve 8.5 GB? I rebooted again, just in case but the block is still reserved.

 

 

Sysinternals' PageDefrag had no luck either.

How can I get this block "un-reserved" so the page file can be defragged?

 

Or is that not even the issue?

 

EDIT: As you can see from the drivemap.PNG I attached, I have a significant amount of fragmentation (~20%). I've been running a defrag now for about 30 mins, and isn't making any headway. It doesn't seem to be able to use that huge MFT Reserved block at all, so all it has to work with are the "Low Occupancy" blocks and none of them are large enough to do anything useful with. I really need to get that block "un-reserved"

[eGaTS]

I wish I could change the post title to say "Boot Time Defrag Ineffective & MFT Reserved Issue" <-- can an admin do this?

 

EDIT: Thanks for fixing that

[Augeas]

Windows XP reserves 12.5% of the disk as the MFT Zone, space for the MFT to expand into (with larger disks this became wastefully large, so the process was changed in Vista). As the disk becomes full this reserved space can be used to hold files, which is probably why you didn't see it before you deleted the large ISO file.

 

I can't remember how much free space Defraggler recommends but I think it would be an advantage if you freed up the disk a little, to at least 50 gb.

 

Unfortunately I've not looked at boot-time defrag.

[eGaTS]

Windows XP reserves 12.5% of the disk as the MFT Zone, space for the MFT to expand into (with larger disks this became wastefully large, so the process was changed in Vista). As the disk becomes full this reserved space can be used to hold files, which is probably why you didn't see it before you deleted the large ISO file.

 

I can't remember how much free space Defraggler recommends but I think it would be an advantage if you freed up the disk a little, to at least 50 gb.

 

Unfortunately I've not looked at boot-time defrag.

 

You're right-- I really do need to clear up more space on this drive. It's a never ending battle for me

I had read somewhere that the MFT reserved zone could be used to hold files-- I just wish Defraggler could use it to hold the page file :/

Is there some way to manually edit how much space gets reserved? Or at least disable that function temporarily?

If I defrag this drive using a different PC (when the OS isn't running) will it still respect the reserved zone?

I'm off to try and find out, but let me know if anyone knows how to do this.

[Guest]

The smallest size for the MFT is 12.5% of your hard drive and you can't remove it if you're using NTFS. However, if you have a spare external hard drive or some kind of temporary mass storage device why don't you temporarily move your biggest space hogs over there and then try defragging your page file. Remember to have a set size for your page file so it won't fragment again or move it onto a different partition.

[Guest TexShane]

You can wipe your MFT free space, turn off the page file, reboot, and turn it back on after defragging the rest of the computer.