How do I delete my NTFS indexes?

matav

Posts: 143   +0
i am using Windows XP SP3 and recently when i did a chkdsk on one of my drives, i noticed one line in the summary log:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
...
242756607 KB total disk space.
104309496 KB in 59523 files.
24136 KB in 3244 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
138959 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
138284016 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
60689151 total allocation units on disk.
34571004 allocation units available on disk.
i generally prevent my drives from indexing files/folders (by un-checking the option "Allow Indexing Service to..." from the drive property) but somehow, indexing of files still managed to occur on all my drives!
now my aim is to get that index size stripped down from 24136kb as much as possible.
Does anyone know how this can be done?

also, just out of curiosity...
1. where are these index tables stored?
>> i checked the indexing service application in the mmc tool for the catalog/s but i don't see anything relevant here.

2. how can i flush these index catalogs or whatever they are?
>> so that the next time i run chkdsk, it should report at least 12kb in 3244 indexes.
(as i have noticed that an empty drive with no files/folders shows 12kb in 8 indexes)

3. what happens in the scenario when i connect a drive (that had allowed indexing) and i move files/folder from this indexed drive to another drive (that does not allow indexing)?
ex:
a. E drive allows indexing while F drive does not allow indexing
b. E drive has 100 folders, 1000 files
c. I move all the files/folders from E drive to F drive
will the indexes get transferred as well?
>> i think not :/ but i am seriously confused as to why my drives have developed indexes!

4. what happens to the indexes when a drive was previously allowed to index files and later was stopped from indexing anymore.
do the indexes stay? if they do stay then won't they get horribly inaccurate after alot of disk modifications? and why won't they just simply go away? :s

basically, i just want to rid my drive/s of the indexes without formatting.

--
the problem with the indexing service is that i don't search for files/folders and it horribly slows down the chkdsk utility :/
just an unnecessary overhead
 
NO NO NO! This is NOT a search index, but a FILESYSTEM Index.

Without the NTFS Index, you have NOTHING!
 
I believe you can disable the INDEXING SERVICE to stop wasting time AND
the file name INDEX.DAT in a directory is the data for that directory
(hint: you can delete them - - I did :) )
 
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