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Accepted
NiKiZe
Asked: 2021-10-16 03:29:16 +0800 CST

NTFS Defrag fails - master file table is too fragmented. (0x89000023)

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Issue: MFT is to fragmented to be defragmented

OS: Windows Server 2016

The goal was to shrink a volume/partition to make room for a separate data section, but the question comes down to: any known solution to this defrag issue/error?.

Is there any known way to get around/fix this MFT issue from within Windows?

I currently only have RDP access to the machine, so this would be preferred.

If not, is there any known solutions outside of Windows?

Normal defrag, searching the net for this error gives almost no results.

> defrag /h /u /v c:
....
The storage optimizer cannot continue because the file system's master file table is too fragmented. (0x89000023)

Contig:

> Contig64.exe -v c:\$Mft
Processing c:\$Mft:
Scanning file...
Scanning disk...
File is 2759935 physical clusters in length.
File is in 193 fragments.

Moving 2759935 clusters at file offset cluster 4 to disk cluster 120672730
Move cluster status: STATUS_INVALID_PARAMETER

File size: 11304697856 bytes
Fragments before: 193
Fragments after : 193

UltraDefrag MFT: (both UI and boot mode)

ERROR: move_file_clusters: cannot move file clusters of \??\C:\$MFT: 0xc0000304 status: The volume is too fragmented to complete this operation.  
ERROR: move_file: nothing has been moved for \??\C:\$MFT

Using UltraDefrag, defragmentation of most of the disk has succeeded without problem except for MFT.

ntfs defrag defragmentation

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I was sure I ran chkdsk /x /v /f c: and machine restarted without any difference.

    But after running that again - it now works. So these errors was likely due to some kind of corruption.

    From C:\System Volume Information\Chkdsk\....log

    Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
Cleaning up 15 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 15 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 15 unused security descriptors.
Security descriptor verification completed.
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