true image bug?

Hi
i have a question
when i restore an image of a partition , i get a huge (mft) reserved zone

after some time , 1 day for example , it disappears

i used some utility and ultimate defrag or perfectdisk

but this zone disappears

is a bug?
i run xp pro sp2 with last hotfixes

yesterday was the 12% of the drive
today is

thanks

 

I've seen this before on my own system, both working with PerfectDisk and with Ultimate Defrag. After researching it, I find other people have seen it and I never find a good explanation other than it's a quirk of the version of NTFS used in Win XP and it is not to be worried about. These articles were from some fairly credible sources - MVPs, maybe even Mark Russinovich.

Note that you are actually talking about disappearance of the MFT Reseved Zone and not actually part of the MFT itself disappearing - that's an important distinction.

Most recently while doing alot of trials with Ultimate Defrag, the reserved zone disappeared on me but, then after doing a boot-time defrag and purposely moving position of MFT and $.... files, the MFT reserved zone reappeared.


As far as thread topic, I'm not sure this is an ATI bug, as I have seen this occur without using ATI at all.

I will have a quick look to see if I can find any of the articles I referenced above.

 

Another point I remember: This MFT reserved zone is an optimization or convenience and intended to provide room for the MFT to expand into without it having to fragment. In other words, a missing reserved zone will NOT prevent the MFT from having room to grow, at least as long as your drive is not so full that there is no more room for it. The MFT will grow anyways but, without the cushion of empty reseved zone behind it, it may have to grow into a second fragment or more.

 

Some interesting reading, some I've already read, some not:

http://www.diskeeperblog.com/archives/2006/11/the_mystery_of.html

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/174619

http://forum.sysinternals.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=18651&PID=95223

http://www.kessels.com/forum/index.php?topic=1323.0

http://www.kessels.com/forum/index.php?topic=1003.0

http://www.kessels.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=d5d0c8cb3b116685bbbff14af242e86c&topic=934.0

These were from a quick search but there are plenty of links to follow and plenty of terms you can feed to Google to see where it takes you.

 

thanks you so much
but ultimate defrag boot is buggy , it did mess up my C: parittion


if you give a look at the mft is framed between the data , i don't know how could grow

 

Windows will grow the MFT as needed. The fact that it is surrounded by data will cause it to expand the MFT into a second fragment or more, IIRC at 32 blocks at a time. As long as there is free space on the drive, the MFT can grow and you only suffer some very small performance penalty, probably unnoticeable until very full drive and highly fragmented MFT. The reserved MFT zone, since NTFS 3.1 (i.e., Windows XP), is "now just an NTFS-internal hint for the NTFS allocation engine", see: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/XP_kernel.mspx in the middle of the sub-section headed "Changes in Existing I/O Features," under the major heading "I/O Subsystem."

EDIT: Yes, Ultimate Defrag has some bugs. I would hope prius04's complaints, and those of others in the monster thread, either prompt Distrix to fix UD08 or give UD08 users a FREE upgrade to a totally debugged UD09 (or UD10 at this rate).

 

may i ask a question ?
in my place would you perform a offline to move the mft data?

or the windows built in defrag should move it ? i mean the mft ? or move the data close the mft

thank you for the help

acronis support sleep

 

Looking at your drive map in Ultimate Defrag, I would NOT move it, simply becasue you have so much room on your drive that it should not be a problem as is, even if MFT expands into a few fragments.

HOWEVER, on MY machine, after imaging all partitions, I have tried Ultimate Defrag boot-time defrag and KNOW that if behaves correctly, so I have experimented successfully with moving MFT around.

My preference is to have archived data (*.iso, *.cab, *.zip, *.msi, *.msp, *.pst, *.img) at center of drive and to have MFT + $... + MFT Zone all together in the MIDDLE (or near to) of my high performance files (*.exe, *.dll, layout.ini, and pagefile.sys). Hopefully, I have most accessed files + MFT at fast front of drive and archives at slow end of drive. So, my C: drive is like this, Directories & actual MFT at about 4:00-5:00 in front of magenta MFT Zone, $.... files at about 7:00 just inside MFT Zone:



Of course, not of this has too much to do with ATI.

I'm not gaining much, it's just how I arrived at a sem-ideal layout after playing. Unless you just want to play or test, I wouldn't worry about what you have right now.

Maybe this thread belongs over in Software and Services by now? LOL

LAST EDIT: Just some image, wording, and spelling tweaks

 

yes it has to do with ati
because before making the image and reserved zone was linked to the mft

after the restore of the image , the reserved zone was away to the mft

and ati put the mft in a zone of the hard disk stuck by the data and can not grow normally

i'm asking if the windows xp defrag could move the data close to the mft , leave a space black to the mft for the revered zone?

 

This does not tell me that ati made the MFT zone disappear. I expect UD made it disappear. Another thing that can make it disappear is filling the drive up, which you didn't mention doing.

Yes, then maybe ATI did that. Perhaps it's a bug. BUT, perhaps ATI doesn't really record the MFT and Windows created the MFT zone after the restore. In any event, the MFT zone being separated from the MFT is not a MAJOR problem, especially on a mostly empty hard drive as you showed the UD map for above.

No problem, yes it can. The MFT does NOT require contiguous empty sectors to grow. As I already stated, it will simply begin its growth in a second cluster.

I don't know. I don't see why not. Why don't you simply give it a try. There is no danger, especially if you already have a fresh image of the drive.

What I've been trying to show is that it doesn't matter much to growth of the MFT whether the MFT zone is separated from the MFT or even if it is gone. The MFT zone is not as important to the MFT as it used to be prior to Winodws XP and NTFS version 3.1 - Microsoft says it themselves, albeit in other words. Even if the MFT zone is moved or gone, the MFT can still grow as needed, either into existing contiguous empty space or into some other empty part of the harddrive in a second fragment. Even then it is not the end of the world.

 

Under NTFS file system. the MFT reserve area is a portion of the disk that Windows marks off for future use as part of the MFT when and if the MFT needs to expand. The reason it marks off an area is so that, if the MFT needs to expand, it can can be a contiguous part of the disk. Depending on how you end up using your disk, you might need more or less area of this area actually to become part of your MFT, so windows adjusts the reserrved area. Windows will freee up some of the MFT Reserve area if you disk use indicates that you need more space for files. Some defraggers also do this when they move the MFT and MFT Reserve are to what it thinks are the optimal locations on the harddisk. I belive XP puts the MFT Reserve area in the logical middle of the partition while some defraggers like to put it up closer to the logical front of the the disk. Whether the diff in location makes a piddle worth of diff to actual operations is unlikely and in any event depends on your disk use, ne location isn't best for everyone.

I wouldn't worry about the size of the MFT -- windows accomodates or adjusts.