Reserved system space?

[Guest zulu]

My two USB2 hard drives both, according to *Diskeeper* have a sizeable chunk

of *Reserved System Space*

On the assumption that System Restore was responsible, I disabled it for

both these drives. I then transferred the contents of the smaller 250Gb

drive to the larger 500Gb one.

I then formatted the empty drive (not quick format) as it was i.e.NTFS , 512

sectors.

 

Diskeeper _still_ shows the same unusable volume...

 

What is going on here?

How can I recover this space?

....should I leave well alone even? (why?)

 

--

¦zulu¦

[Guest Shenan Stanley]

Re: Reserved system space?

 

zulu wrote:

> My two USB2 hard drives both, according to *Diskeeper* have a

> sizeable chunk of *Reserved System Space*

> On the assumption that System Restore was responsible, I disabled

> it for both these drives. I then transferred the contents of the

> smaller 250Gb drive to the larger 500Gb one.

> I then formatted the empty drive (not quick format) as it was

> i.e.NTFS , 512 sectors.

>

> Diskeeper _still_ shows the same unusable volume...

>

> What is going on here?

> How can I recover this space?

> ...should I leave well alone even? (why?)

 

What size is this "sizeable chunk" in realistic (numerical) terms?

 

--

Shenan Stanley

MS-MVP

--

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

[Guest John John]

Re: Reserved system space?

 

zulu wrote:

> My two USB2 hard drives both, according to *Diskeeper* have a sizeable chunk

> of *Reserved System Space*

> On the assumption that System Restore was responsible, I disabled it for

> both these drives. I then transferred the contents of the smaller 250Gb

> drive to the larger 500Gb one.

> I then formatted the empty drive (not quick format) as it was i.e.NTFS , 512

> sectors.

>

> Diskeeper _still_ shows the same unusable volume...

>

> What is going on here?

> How can I recover this space?

> ...should I leave well alone even? (why?)

 

It's quite probably the NTFS MFT zone. Because MFT fragmentation can

degrade performance the file system preemptively reserves a large

contiguous block for the MFT when the drive is formatted. This space

isn't lost, it will be used if needed. If the disk runs out of space

for files the file system will relent and yield space for the files from

the MFT zone. The opposite is also true, if the MFT zone fills up it

will take space from the available (free) disk space for its needs, the

problem there is that the MFT will become fragmented and the built in

disk defragmenter will not be able to defragment it. Also note that

small files of 1KB or less are stored in the MFT. You can change the

default MFT zone reservation if you want:

 

How NTFS reserves space for its Master File Table (MFT)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/174619/en-us

 

If I were you I wouldn't keep 512 byte sectors, it imposes a heavy

overhead on the file system, unless all or most of the files on the disk

are tiny (512 bytes or less) you shouldn't use such small clusters, it

would be better to stick with the standard 4k clusters.

 

John

[Guest Colin Barnhorst]

Re: Reserved system space?

 

I agree with John John's opinion that it is reserved by NTFS. This would be

normal behavior.

 

"zulu" <nothere@ntlworld.com> wrote in message

news:efdq7RKeIHA.6092@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...

> My two USB2 hard drives both, according to *Diskeeper* have a sizeable

> chunk of *Reserved System Space*

> On the assumption that System Restore was responsible, I disabled it for

> both these drives. I then transferred the contents of the smaller 250Gb

> drive to the larger 500Gb one.

> I then formatted the empty drive (not quick format) as it was i.e.NTFS ,

> 512 sectors.

>

> Diskeeper _still_ shows the same unusable volume...

>

> What is going on here?

> How can I recover this space?

> ...should I leave well alone even? (why?)

>

> --

> ¦zulu¦

>

[Guest zulu]

Re: Reserved system space?

 

OK, nw I understand why *Properties* didn't see the *missing" space.

I will reformat the now empty drive to 4kb sectors, but the other (larger

one) will have to stay as it is, 512, as I have nowhere to move all the

conyents to!

 

Thank you all :-)

 

--

¦zulu¦

 

"Colin Barnhorst" <c.barnhorst@comcast.net> wrote in message

news:01D7A96A-ED27-42D2-8B1C-6F09C0E91B60@microsoft.com...

>I agree with John John's opinion that it is reserved by NTFS. This would

>be normal behavior.

>

> "zulu" <nothere@ntlworld.com> wrote in message

> news:efdq7RKeIHA.6092@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...

>> My two USB2 hard drives both, according to *Diskeeper* have a sizeable

>> chunk of *Reserved System Space*

>> On the assumption that System Restore was responsible, I disabled it for

>> both these drives. I then transferred the contents of the smaller 250Gb

>> drive to the larger 500Gb one.

>> I then formatted the empty drive (not quick format) as it was i.e.NTFS ,

>> 512 sectors.

>>

>> Diskeeper _still_ shows the same unusable volume...

>>

>> What is going on here?

>> How can I recover this space?

>> ...should I leave well alone even? (why?)

>>

>> --

>> ¦zulu¦

>>

>