James35

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Hey all, ok amongst other annoying things im discovering about xp. here is one i cant seem to get rid of

i installed diskeeper 7 today and went and defrag both my drives. which works pretty good. but. i noticed i have 50% of my backup drive taken up by what diskeeper is calling reserve system space i check to see if it was a swap file and simply deleted it but didn't help and was already off anyways.. what do i do to get rid of it?

thanks for the idea's in advance
 

Toejam31

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Here's an article you may find interesting:

<A HREF="http://www.execsoft.com/tech-support/NT-articles/article.asp?F=1997042926.htm" target="_new">http://www.execsoft.com/tech-support/NT-articles/article.asp?F=1997042926.htm</A>

Toejam31

<font color=red>My Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847</A>
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<font color=blue>"Does history record any case in which the majority was right?" ... Robert A. Heinlein</font color=blue>
 

James35

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ya is, but doesnt say how to remove it. I understand its on teh main drive. my 40 gig. but i do not need it on my backup drive as it is taking damn near 50% of it up.. thats ... what I need gone. it is simply a storage disk not used for anything but that reason. had never done this in the past...why all of a sudden is my drive almost gone?
was like over night.
so any idea how to kill it off?
 

sandshoe

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Well if you dont want an MFT on the backup drive then convert it back to FAT32 rather then NTFS. If you remove the MFT off the drive then you pretty much lose all the data stored on it. Anyways, why would you use NTFS for a backup drive. If the system crashes, theres no way you can read it under DOS. At least if it's FAT32 you can still read the files on the disk under DOS.
 

Toejam31

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Hmmm. Good question.

Have you tried defragging the MFT with the boot-time defragmenter in Diskeeper?

And ... another couple of links:

<A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q227/3/50.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=FDISK%20/MFT&rnk=12&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=WIN2000" target="_new">http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q227/3/50.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=FDISK%20/MFT&rnk=12&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=WIN2000</A>

<A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q174/6/19.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=NTFS%20AND%20reserved%20system%20space&rnk=63&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=WIN2000" target="_new">http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q174/6/19.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=NTFS%20AND%20reserved%20system%20space&rnk=63&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=WIN2000</A>

The articles should be applicable in your situation, since the disk defragmenter in Win2K and WinXP is the "light" version of Diskeeper.

Hope this helps!

Toejam31

<font color=red>My Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847</A>
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<font color=blue>"Does history record any case in which the majority was right?" ... Robert A. Heinlein</font color=blue>
 

James35

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im not using dos and the win 2k disk and xp pro disk can read the back up drive. and also i wouldnt lose anything on the back up as it just appeared out of no where only 3 days ago

it hasnt been on there the entire time i used win2k and past 2 months with xp.
so why now?
 

James35

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ya have, and it appeared when i put on disk keeper 7 . prior to that was never there. this has to be a back up to the main drive be cause its almost 4 gigs in size.. there isn't 4 gigs of data on the back up combined.
am thinking i did something when i was defragging the mft.
and trying out dk7

ill have a read and get back to you on it

thanks toey :)
 

Toejam31

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Here's something you might find <i>very</i> interesting ... where there is a problem, there is usually someone working on a solution:

"NTFS for Windows 98 is a NTFS file system driver for Windows 95 and Windows 98. Once installed, any NTFS drives present on your system will be fully accessible as native Windows 98 volumes. This free version provides read-only capabilities. A read/write version is for sale at Winternals Software <A HREF="http://www.winternals.com/" target="_new">http://www.winternals.com/</A>. To access NTFS drives from DOS for read/write access, see NTFSDOS Professional <A HREF="http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfsdospro.shtml" target="_new">http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfsdospro.shtml</A>"

Pretty cool, huh? Of course, these utilities aren't free, (except for the Read-Only versions) but it's nice to know there is a workaround if needed.

Toejam31

<font color=red>My Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847</A>
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<font color=blue>"Does history record any case in which the majority was right?" ... Robert A. Heinlein</font color=blue>
 

sandshoe

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After running speeddisk last night, as far as I can tell, the reserve system space is free space reserved to the MFT to expand into if needed. But it the MFT should'nt be taking up any more then 12.5% of the diskspace, unless you have alot of small files on the system.

You can actually change the size of the MFT in the registry.

http://www.pureperformance.com/js/showtip.asp?id=54

This link has a few details on it.
 

James35

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I shrank this as far as i could i know what the mft does.. what i dont get is why its taking up 50% of my backup drive.. it has to be the main drive using that as its back up.. and i do not get why now and not the past year.
 

sandshoe

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The MFT can only be on the drive that it is for. It cannot simply just put the MFT on another drive. Something on your backup drive is causing the MFT to be rather large.
 

ejsmith2

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"12.5% "

Ok, so I'm *THE* only fruitcake around that uses (at the absolute most) 13meg on a 1.5gig partition for the MFT. That's a system drive. My data drives with Autocad and game files run closer to 20meg on a 20gig drive.

WTF!?

(as in "WTF!? is this Mickey Mouse $hit in here!...Why are you not stomping private Pyle?!)

So, that other 135/2200 meg is unused, but reserved? That's wonderful.
Hello I'll take a fragmented MFT any day. Or least let me run down to 2% or something. I like how FAT32 supports file-based permissions, too.

Good ole' msft. Taking care of everyone's needs, based on their judgement...


Rich is the nation that has many war heroes. Long since forgotten...
 

sandshoe

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The 12.5% I took off what is reserved for the MFT. If anyone can use anymore that I'd be damn impressed. Im reality my MFT is only sitting around a few meg. I use FAT32 on my other drive, otherwise the MFT would just waste too much space, due to the fact that there is around 50,000 odd files on it. :p
 

ejsmith2

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Yeah, the whole 12.5%/25%/40% thing really chaps me. While it's wonderful that everything is automatic and 'dummy-proof', It would be nice to have an 'Override'.

As in, "Where's the Override?! The Override?!"

"Fire."

Rich is the nation that has many war heroes. Long since forgotten...