Error Message "Disk Defragmenter Could Not Initialize"

When you attempt to analyze or defragment an NTFS volume using the Windows 2000 Disk Defragmenter utility, you may receive the following error message: This error message does not occur when you analyze or defragment other FAT, FAT32, or NTFS volumes.

This issue occurs only on highly fragmented NTFS volumes whose Master File Table (MFT) is also highly fragmented.

To work around this issue, back up the data on the NTFS volume, and verify that the backup file contains all of the file data. Then reformat the NTFS volume and restore it from the backup file. When this procedure is complete, the Disk Defragmenter utility should run successfully against that volume.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.