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Q297268: Data Fragmentation Occurs When You Restore Data to Clean Volume

Article: Q297268
Product(s): Microsoft Windows NT
Version(s): 4.0
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): kbtool kbOSWin2000fix kbWinNT400PreSP7Fix kbWin2000sp3fix
Last Modified: 15-AUG-2002

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0 
- Microsoft Windows NT Server, Enterprise Edition version 4.0 
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 4.0 
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SYMPTOMS
========

After you restore data from a tape to a clean NTFS file system volume, many of
the restored files may be fragmented on the disk.

CAUSE
=====

This behavior occurs because Ntbackup.exe does not give NTFS any information
about how big the file that is being restored is. Because of this, NTFS must
pre-allocate standard size runs of clusters to hold the file. This means that it
typically allocates too much space that is later returned to the free cluster
pool when the file is fully restored. These small runs are then used again for
restoring later files, and this caused file fragmentation to occur.

STATUS
======

This behavior is by design. This problem was first corrected in Windows 2000
Service Pack 3.

RESOLUTION
==========

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows 2000. For
additional information, click the following article number to view the article
in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

  Q260910 How to Obtain the Latest Windows 2000 Service Pack

MORE INFORMATION
================

To reduce the affect of this fragmentation, you may want to defragment your
disks at regular intervals. To change this functionality requires a design
change request, but design change requests are no longer accepted for Windows NT
4.0.

Additional query words: kbBaseOS

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Keywords          : kbtool kbOSWin2000fix kbWinNT400PreSP7Fix kbWin2000sp3fix 
Technology        : kbWinNTsearch kbWinNTWsearch kbWinNTW400 kbWinNTW400search kbWinNT400search kbWinNTSsearch kbWinNTSEntSearch kbWinNTSEnt400 kbWinNTS400search kbWinNTS400
Version           : :4.0
Hardware          : ALPHA x86
Issue type        : kbbug
Solution Type     : kbfix

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