defragging a 4 GB MFT area file

[sybernut]

Hello

This post relates to the following article:
(http://www.mcpmag.com/columns/articl...itorialsID=643).

The mfg of a computer I bought decided to format the XP Pro primary
partition with FAT32 (originally a ~ 160 GB partition), God knows
why since there's no room for any other OS. Conversion from FAT32 to
NTFS with a contiguous MFT has been an educational but frustrating
experience. I have tried unsuccesfully to XP-defrag a 4 GB MFT area
file to a single fragment on this partition using both >32 GB and 32
GB FAT32 partition sizes, with various cluster sizes (resized with
PartitionMagic). There is
only about 6 GB of data on this partition. I tried the Sysinternals Contig
utility on the same file, but it fails with the following error:

Move cluster status: STATUS_INVALID_PARAMETER

Any suggestions? Is the file too big for 1 fragment? If so, how does
one create a contiguous MFT for a 32 GB or larger partition? At this
point I have given up for the time being
and will continue to use FAT32 until I get some advice.

thanks in advance for any and all help,
Vlad

[Play_The_0dds]

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro...onvertfat.mspx
the link above is the MS commands for converting fat to ntfs...I am a little unclear what all has gone on with your partitioning and dont want to give bad advice and cause a problem. Am I correct that XP is on a 32 gig partition and has a fragment problem with a 4 gig file that is on the same partition as XP?

[HeddaLora]

I know Diskeeper has the ability to defrag stuff that other defraggers have trouble with. You might want to contact Executive Software and ask them about it or see if you can find some info on their web site. They might be able to help you with the NTFS question.

[sybernut]

Play_the_Odds...

I've tried down to 32 GB to be sure that it wasn't 'cos I was using a FAT32 partition bigger than 32 GB. It's currently at ~ 50 GB, with the same behaviour for both 32 and 50.

HeddaLorra...
thanks for the tip!

Vlad