How to remove NTFS system files from a previous Vista installation
- by Boldewyn
I'm trying to shrink my system partition under Win Vista. It's all fine, except that in front of the last 300MB of the volume sits a single file, that cannot be moved by defrag or other means from its position. It's called C:\$Extend\$UsnJrnl:$J, and my assumtion is, that it is left from a previous installation of Vista, when I re-set up the system.
Now, googling for this kind of files brings interesting results, but no solution to my problem:
Files left on the disk can become ownerless in a new setup of Windows and inaccessible (even for administrators). To be able to access them again, I found the tip to use takeown to re-assign them to the Admin group (or anyone else). Works like a charm for normal files, but not for the C:\$Extend stuff.
The C:\$Extend folder is a system folder of the NTFS file system, where the journal is stored (especially in a file called $UsnJrnl:$Data, whose name is surprisingly close to mine).
You can delete the journal with fsutil usn /delete C:, however, this doesn't work from within the booted system (as I found out trying). Also, I'm not quite sure of the side effects.
You can't move the NTFS own files with standard defrag tools. The same holds, by the way, for not accessible files.
Every bit of knowledge out there is targeted to either not accessible files or the $Extend NTFS stuff, but noone addresses my problem involving both, an inaccessible system file.
Question: How can I remove this file, or at least how can I move it on the disk?
