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    How do you change the MFT size in Vista?

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by Czaralekzander, May 18, 2008.

  1. Czaralekzander

    Czaralekzander Notebook Consultant

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    According to a defrag utility I am using 99% of my 229 MB MFT. Should I try to increase the size? If so, how can I do that? When I used Diskeeper 2008 I remember some option to manage the MFT size, but I no longer use Diskeeper 2008.


    Any suggestions?
     
    Czaralekzander, May 18, 2008
    #1
  2. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Windows will take care of this automatically for you when it is needed. Do NOT alter this by yourself, as you probably would lose a lot of data.
     
    Greg, May 18, 2008
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  3. Andromeda

    Andromeda Notebook Consultant

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    IIRC, Windows initially allocates about 12% of the drive for the MFT zone to allow it to grow. As the number of files increases, the MFT also grows and may expand beyond it's allocated zone. Windows will automatically more space for it (how much, I don't know), but this new allocation may not be contiguous to the original MFT zone, leading to fragmentation of the MFT.

    AFAIK, Diskeeper is the only utility that proactively increases the size of the MFT and makes it contiguous to prevent it's fragmentation. There is no way to do it manually at the moment. Even DK 2008 does it automatically now, instead of the user having to resize it. I don't know how safe it is to mess with the MFT manually....if you screw it up, you lose everything on the drive.
     
    Andromeda, May 20, 2008
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  4. Czaralekzander

    Czaralekzander Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks for the info guys.
     
    Czaralekzander, May 20, 2008
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