Is MFT boot-time defragmentation long?

Hello,

this morning i started a boot-time defragmentation to defrag the
master file table (MFT) and the paging file. Now we are 12 hours
later, and my pc has not yet finished the task. (i'm in europe)

I have XP professional sp2 on partition C with 20 gigas, 10 gigas
occupied, 10 gigas free. The defrag-program is Diskeeper.

Worrying about the long time "nothing" happening, i read somewhere
that the MFT-defragmentation would be very long. The guy told that he
needed about 4 hours for his partition with XP (4 giga partition). The
time would also depend on the free space resting on the partition.

I don't venture to push the reset button when le MFT defragmentation
is running. Can you affirm that this kind of defragmentation is very
long? Have i well done not to reset and interrupt the defrag-process?

(Lucky that i kept my old pc, always running, so i can talk to you !)

Thank you.

steph

On Apr 8, 4:48*pm, steph <nospample...@nodomain.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> this morning i started a boot-time defragmentation to defrag the
> master file table (MFT) and the paging file. Now we are 12 hours
> later, and my pc has not yet finished the task. (i'm in europe)
>
> I have XP professional sp2 on partition C with 20 gigas, 10 gigas
> occupied, 10 gigas free. The defrag-program is Diskeeper.
>
> Worrying about the long time "nothing" happening, i read *somewhere
> that the MFT-defragmentation would be very long. The guy told that he
> needed about 4 hours for his partition with XP (4 giga partition). The
> time would also depend on the free space resting on the partition.
>
> I don't venture to push the reset button when le MFT defragmentation
> is running. Can you *affirm that this kind of defragmentation is very
> long? Have i well done not to reset and interrupt the defrag-process?
>
> (Lucky that i kept my old pc, always running, so i can talk to you !)
>
> Thank you.
>
> steph

I never heard of MFT defragging. Any manipluations of MFT should be
handled with extreme care for is MFT gets damaged, "kiss your drive
good-bye." I lost my hard drive May 2007 due to a MFT corruption and
needed to get a disk recovery system to extract my files from this
corruption. (Very painfully slow!)

smlunatick <yveslec@gmail.com> schrieb:

>I never heard of MFT defragging. Any manipluations of MFT should be
>handled with extreme care for is MFT gets damaged, "kiss your drive
>good-bye." I lost my hard drive May 2007 due to a MFT corruption and
>needed to get a disk recovery system to extract my files from this
>corruption. (Very painfully slow!)

If the MFT-defragging works, the drive could be faster. You can also
defrag the registry. I am sorry for your hard drive lost. Thank you
for telling me your experience. So i better will give my hard drive 24
hours to come to end with his MFT-defrag, perhaps even longer.

Steph

What defragmenter are you using?


~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
steph wrote:
> smlunatick <yveslec@gmail.com> schrieb:
>
>> I never heard of MFT defragging. Any manipluations of MFT should be
>> handled with extreme care for is MFT gets damaged, "kiss your drive
>> good-bye." I lost my hard drive May 2007 due to a MFT corruption and
>> needed to get a disk recovery system to extract my files from this
>> corruption. (Very painfully slow!)
>
> If the MFT-defragging works, the drive could be faster. You can also
> defrag the registry. I am sorry for your hard drive lost. Thank you
> for telling me your experience. So i better will give my hard drive 24
> hours to come to end with his MFT-defrag, perhaps even longer.

"steph" <nospamplease@nodomain.com> wrote in message
news:ctknv3t4a61e19cbkrla7bvfoihqmoi28h@4ax.com...
> Hello,
>
> this morning i started a boot-time defragmentation to defrag the
> master file table (MFT) and the paging file. Now we are 12 hours
> later, and my pc has not yet finished the task. (i'm in europe)
>
> I have XP professional sp2 on partition C with 20 gigas, 10 gigas
> occupied, 10 gigas free. The defrag-program is Diskeeper.
>
> Worrying about the long time "nothing" happening, i read somewhere
> that the MFT-defragmentation would be very long. The guy told that he
> needed about 4 hours for his partition with XP (4 giga partition). The
> time would also depend on the free space resting on the partition.
>
> I don't venture to push the reset button when le MFT defragmentation
> is running. Can you affirm that this kind of defragmentation is very
> long? Have i well done not to reset and interrupt the defrag-process?
>
> (Lucky that i kept my old pc, always running, so i can talk to you !)
>
> Thank you.
>
> steph

I'm not sure that the size of the HDD is relevant as it doesn't reflect the
size of your MFT.
In any case, I have a 140 Gb HDD, MFT is 615,136 entries.
MFT defrag, which included CHKDSK, took 9 mins, 52 secs including the
restarts. I suggest that you do have a problem, although I have no idea what
you should do about it.

"steph" <nospamplease@nodomain.com> wrote in message
news:ctknv3t4a61e19cbkrla7bvfoihqmoi28h@4ax.com...
> Hello,
>
> this morning i started a boot-time defragmentation to defrag the
> master file table (MFT) and the paging file. Now we are 12 hours
> later, and my pc has not yet finished the task. (i'm in europe)
>
> I have XP professional sp2 on partition C with 20 gigas, 10 gigas
> occupied, 10 gigas free. The defrag-program is Diskeeper.
>
> Worrying about the long time "nothing" happening, i read somewhere
> that the MFT-defragmentation would be very long. The guy told that he
> needed about 4 hours for his partition with XP (4 giga partition). The
> time would also depend on the free space resting on the partition.
>
> I don't venture to push the reset button when le MFT defragmentation
> is running. Can you affirm that this kind of defragmentation is very
> long? Have i well done not to reset and interrupt the defrag-process?
>
> (Lucky that i kept my old pc, always running, so i can talk to you !)
>
> Thank you.
>
> steph


I would absolutely not fool around with defragging your MFT and pagefile!

"Gerry" <gerry@nospam.com> schrieb:

>Steph
>
>What defragmenter are you using?

Gerry, i use Diskeeper 2007. Here is the user's manual:

http://downloads.diskeeper.com/pdf/D...ome-Manual.pdf

They tell it would be better to run the CHKDSK utility before the
mft-defrag..

I didn't do that because chkdsk prolongs considerably the run time.
Now the defrag is running for 16 hours even without chkdsk. I hope i
will find my hard drive back tommorow morning - i worry.

steph

"The Doctor" <tardis@deep.space.inv> schrieb:

>I'm not sure that the size of the HDD is relevant as it doesn't reflect the
>size of your MFT.
>In any case, I have a 140 Gb HDD, MFT is 615,136 entries.
>MFT defrag, which included CHKDSK, took 9 mins, 52 secs including the
>restarts. I suggest that you do have a problem, although I have no idea what
>you should do about it.

Oh, this is very fast, comparing to my 20 Gb and 16 hours not ended.
What defrag program do you use?
Il will wait this night. Tomorrow morning, it will be the reset
button, i don't see other way.

"steph" <nospamplease@nodomain.com> wrote in message
news:g84ov3tipm32533dum6bk3d9q77ad02gk9@4ax.com...
> "The Doctor" <tardis@deep.space.inv> schrieb:
>
>>I'm not sure that the size of the HDD is relevant as it doesn't reflect
>>the
>>size of your MFT.
>>In any case, I have a 140 Gb HDD, MFT is 615,136 entries.
>>MFT defrag, which included CHKDSK, took 9 mins, 52 secs including the
>>restarts. I suggest that you do have a problem, although I have no idea
>>what
>>you should do about it.
>
> Oh, this is very fast, comparing to my 20 Gb and 16 hours not ended.
> What defrag program do you use?
> Il will wait this night. Tomorrow morning, it will be the reset
> button, i don't see other way.

I used Diskeeper as well. Diskeeper advises that you have a current backup
before any major operation such as this ...
I hope that you do have a backup, because you'll almost certainly need it if
you restart your computer while the MFT is being manipulated.

Steph

The link to the Manual gave me some interesting reading. Thank you.

I did not have the time to read the whole Manual but I did not see one
point worth mentioning. Before running chkdsk or defragmenting it helps
to run Disk CleanUp including the System Restore option on the More
Options tab. Alternatively use cCleaner to remove unneeded files, but
you still need to use the System Restore option in Disk CleanUp if you
do. Compacting Outlook Express files may also be helpful. No point in
defragmenting unwanted files!

The Manual does say you should not use the boot time option for general
defragmenting, using it specifically to defragment the pagefile and the
MFT table. Many users see defragmenting the pagefile as a waste of time
because it is constantly changing i.e. always in a state of flux. The
Manual picks up on a point I often make, but not one others usually
make, that a non-contiguous pagefile fragments free space. This point
becomes an irrelevance if you have a contiguous file as a result of
setting a fixed size pagefile and achieve a contiguous unmovable file
before the disk usage makes this too difficult. It is also irrelevant if
you have a dedicated pagefile partition at the beginning of a second
drive. Otherwise the fragmentation of free space if the user allows
Windows to manage the pagefile is relevant.

The Manual does state that boot time defragmenting can take a long time.
It recommends restricting the operation to a single volume as well as
not using it for general defragmenting. Are you following these
recommendations?

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

steph wrote:
> "Gerry" <gerry@nospam.com> schrieb:
>
>> Steph
>>
>> What defragmenter are you using?
>
> Gerry, i use Diskeeper 2007. Here is the user's manual:
>
> http://downloads.diskeeper.com/pdf/D...ome-Manual.pdf
>
> They tell it would be better to run the CHKDSK utility before the
> mft-defrag..
>
> I didn't do that because chkdsk prolongs considerably the run time.
> Now the defrag is running for 16 hours even without chkdsk. I hope i
> will find my hard drive back tommorow morning - i worry.
>
> steph