Defrag question?

**Deadeye901** · January 23rd, 2006, 08:04 PM

I ran defrag on my system yesterday and it had a file that it could not defrag.

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Volume (C

Volume size = 37.26 GB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 27.32 GB
Free space = 9.94 GB
Percent free space = 26 %

Volume fragmentation
Total fragmentation = 4 %
File fragmentation = 9 %
Free space fragmentation = 0 %

File fragmentation
Total files = 81,065
Average file size = 420 KB
Total fragmented files = 3
Total excess fragments = 3,909
Average fragments per file = 1.04

Pagefile fragmentation
Pagefile size = 384 MB
Total fragments = 1

Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 3,939
Fragmented folders = 1
Excess folder fragments = 0

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 179 MB
MFT record count = 85,311
Percent MFT in use = 46 %
Total MFT fragments = 195

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fragments File Size Files that cannot be defragmented
3,904 656 MB \Documents and Settings\Me 1\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{46F15E46-FD82-47CD-85AB-D07A817830CE}\Microsoft\Outlook Express\Sent Items.dbx
____________________________________

That file not being able to be defraged seems strange to me...
And does the rest of that look normal??

**confus-ed** · January 24th, 2006, 05:18 AM

Total MFT fragments = 195 Whoa ! That's good & fragmented, infact I'm amazed it goes at all, but defrag won't help you - its not designed to defragment the MFT (master file table) & you need to either do a full backup & restore to rebuild it (M$'s only answer), or use a 3rd party defrag utility which can sort out the MFT, something like perfectdisk or OO defrag required methinks (there's other products that can defrag the MFT too).

M$ strike again with their half arsed answers , I mean what good is a file system that can't fully maintain itself without some 3rd party product ? The whole 'beauty' of NTFS is supposed to be that its self maintaining & monitoring, but then of course some idiot came up with an ever growing (but never shrinking MFT) & shot that notion right out of the window, NTFS is not good in an environment where lots & lots of files may be added & removed frequently on an ongoing basis, i.e the typical profile of a home user - buy yourself a decent defraging product & live with the design weakness methinks

**Platypus** · January 24th, 2006, 05:46 AM

Yeow. Yes, that is a very heavily fragmented MFT. Was the drive converted from FAT32? That's a common cause for a fragmented MFT, which is going to cause loss of performance as the drive hunts all over the place as files are read & written to. DiskKeeper is another utility that can defrag the MFT (it's the "full-blown" relative of the XP "minimalist" Defrag...)

The file that didn't defrag is not necessarily a problem in itself, there are some possibilities like trying a defrag in Safe Mode, or seeing what a better defrag does with it. It's not causing other problems, mainly that free space is not fragmented, so the file's components are nestled in with other files, not stuck out in empty space getting in the way of the paging file or something else important.

However, if its size is reported correctly, it's much too large! An Outlook Express .DBX file nearly 4GB in size is well above OE's handling capacity (2GB), and if not already corrupted, must be in danger of being corrupted. Do you really have that much stored in your Sent Items?

**TechZ** · January 24th, 2006, 06:02 AM

If I'm reading that right it says
Fragments 3,904
File Size 656MB ?

or is it 3,904 656MB?

either of them are quite large for a .DBX file. Thats a lot of mail

**confus-ed** · January 24th, 2006, 06:21 AM

Originally Posted by TechZ

3,904 656MB?

It means 4 gig fella

.. but I dunno what you & platypus are getting hung up on, 'sent items.dbx' is often way bigger than 2gb, & that's an arbitary 'rule of thumb' about size, not a hard & fast limit, if anything is gonna stuff an inbox, or outbox for OE, its the number of messages (transactions) that its had to deal with, not the size..

My current 'sent items.dbx' is 20gb !

as I just mailed off about six mails with big fat attachments & full of images & that's alright

**Platypus** · January 24th, 2006, 06:37 AM

Hmm, this is the sort of info I was referring to:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/903095/en-us

"The maximum file size of the .dbx files that are used by Outlook Express is 2 gigabytes (GB)."

I guess there can be a reason for this not to apply.

I see what Techz means - column headings "Fragments" "File Size" get 3,904 then 656 MB respectively. This is probably what it is meant to say. There is no comma after the 904.

**TechZ** · January 24th, 2006, 08:27 AM

Originally Posted by Platypus

Hmm, this is the sort of info I was referring to:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/903095/en-us

"The maximum file size of the .dbx files that are used by Outlook Express is 2 gigabytes (GB)."

I guess there can be a reason for this not to apply.

I see what Techz means - column headings "Fragments" "File Size" get 3,904 then 656 MB respectively. This is probably what it is meant to say. There is no comma after the 904.

exactly

**confus-ed** · January 24th, 2006, 08:51 AM

Originally Posted by Platypus

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/903095/en-us

"The maximum file size of the .dbx files that are used by Outlook Express is 2 gigabytes (GB)."...

Oooo .. irrefutible evidence from the kb .. but I can still see a big fat .dbx file on this pc though

Therefore I think they missed a word out;- 'reliably' - as I've just tried forwarding the self same messages (that just worked) to some more machines via OE & sometimes it works & sometimes it doesn't !

, but at the minute I've concluded that it works for NTFS volumes sometimes, but not at all for FAT volumes, so I think its some limit to do with the dbx (database) structure & how that works with naming files for its tablespace. Saying it works 'sometimes' with bigger stores would no doubt confuse matters, as much as it did me finding it out !

But anyway I come accross bigger than 2gb .dbx files reasonably often, whether that's meant to happen or not !

But you definately don't want them that big - large attachments etc should be saved seperately once received, & I think they made OE & outlook ask if you want to autoarchive every 100 openings for a reason, as I stick with my line that number of entries is more likely to stuff up your in & out boxes than size alone..

& while I've been typing I see you've decided its all a false alarm anyway ! - 3,904 fragments over 656mb of c:\..\sent items.dbx it is ! ..

**Platypus** · January 24th, 2006, 08:57 AM

Yes, 3,904 fragments - I think defrag just decided not to bother with that one...

**emr** · January 24th, 2006, 11:07 AM

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/PageDefrag.html

This defrags the Pagefile, etc. Doesn't include the MFT though I don't think.

emr

**Deadeye901** · January 25th, 2006, 02:13 AM

Thanks folks..

You're right it was 3,904 fragments.

I did get it to defrag.
I deleted a bunch of the sent items, and compacted the folder. Then ran defrag again. It got it.

I guess it did defrag the MFT too.
Check it out now:
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Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 179 MB
MFT record count = 86,510
Percent MFT in use = 47 %
Total MFT fragments = 3
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I remember the day when M$ didn't have a defragger. I used norton way back when. I may look into a disk utilities package for xp.