"Disk Defragmenter cannot defragment NTFS drives with more than 4 KB per cluster" in Windows 2000 (837336)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional

SYMPTOMS

When you try to defragment a drive that uses the NTFS file system, you may receive an error message that is similar to the following:
Disk Defragmenter cannot defragment NTFS drives with more than 4 KB per cluster.

CAUSE

This issue occurs because the NTFS compressed file functions map files in memory by using 4 kilobyte (KB) blocks. Therefore, these functions do not support cluster sizes that are larger than 4 KB.

WORKAROUND

To work around this issue, format the NTFS drive by using an allocation unit size that is less than or equal to 4 KB (4096 bytes).

REFERENCES

For additional information about the limitations of the Disk Defragmenter tool, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

227463 Disk Defragmenter limitations in Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003

Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:1/19/2005
Keywords:kbtshoot kbDefrag kbprb KB837336 kbAudITPRO
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