General - MFT Size
MFT or Master File Table can be regarded as the soul component of NTFS file system. MFT records entry of each file on the hard disk and its corruption costs at data recovery need. MFT size increases if you keep on creating and deleting files from NTFS volume and the reason lies in the way MFT deals with the file entries. How does MFT deals with file entries? As discussed, MFT is responsible for holding all metadata information of a file like its size, permissions, creation and modification details and others, so without MFT, Windows cant locate and thus access data. At start i.e. at the time when you first install NTFS on your hard drive, MFT size is small as contains the metadata of just MFT itself and not the data files. But as you continue to grow in terms of data on volume, file entries are added and hence MFT size increases. Now, at the time of file deletion, MFT should shrink simultaneously, but actually this doesnt happen. NTFS marks the corresponding MFT entries as free and reusable, but doesnt allow MFT to shrink. In other words, if MFT size has grown to an extent once, there is no decree that it will get lowered in size. About MFT Default Zone MFT is extremely relevant for NTFS disk to operate correctly and NTFS has a provision to specify an exclusive default zone for MFT, what we call as MFT default zone. The main objective is to keep MFT defragmented as much as possible. Almost 12.5 percent of volume is reserved for MFT. This space is not allowed to be used for other files and folders until the rest of volume may become full, thats why we refer this zone as exclusive. However, you can change this space allocation by sensitive registry editing. The reason, why this edit is called sensitive is that a single fault can force you to reinstall operating system and ask for data recovery. But the concept of MFT zone exclusiveness starts voiding when this space is utilized. NTFS can allow its usage, when continuously small sized files are asked to be stored in large number or the unreserved space becomes full. Thus, a type of rivalry starts between MFT and data files for volume space, which eventually makes MFT scattered i.e. fragmented. Extreme fragmentation can corrupt it. Data Recovery MFT corruption is an alias of NTFS corruption and data loss. So if you lose data in this way, use data recovery utilities which can let you access lost data without the aid of MFT. Even if the disk is formatted, like in case when operating system is reinstalled, Data recovery software help regaining the lost information. Data recovery software do take care that the data should remain intact and are based on the principle that while file system corruption or any other logical data loss case, exact file contents remain safe on hard disk. Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery can help you retrieving lost data in an effectual way as is capable of scanning hard disk with the powerful algorithms. The application is safe and complete for fetching data recovery results. This data recovery application is the product from Stellar Information Systems Limited, the company which has set a trend in offering quality data recovery applications for different operating systems.