Microsoft Windows operating system enables you to compress files, directories, and programs for decreasing their size and reducing amount of disk space used by them on hard drive volume or removable media.

Volume compression minimizes the disk space occupied by the content on a particular volume. NTFS file system facilitates volume compression through Compact.exe utility. It is a command-line utility that enables you to compress or compact files on NTFS partition or the entire partition. However, NTFS compression affects system performance and can cause system crash in some situations. This behavior can lead to system failure and partition loss. In such circumstances, you are required to perform NTFS Partition Recovery to get your lost partitions recovered.

You can use Compact.exe utility with various parameters, to apply compression, view compression state, or modify compression. You can compress as well as decompress the files using several parameters of the tool.

Above all, this utility has a downside. It does not support compression of NTFS file system partitions whose allocation unit size is more than 4 KB (Kilo Byte). When you try to compress such NTFS file system partitions, you may come across the below warning message:

"The file system does not support compression"

The size of allocation unit is defined when you format your hard drive using NTFS file system. It is used by Microsoft Windows operating system as the smallest quantity of disk space for allocating to any file. If you do not specify cluster size during formatting, Windows automatically takes default value, that is, 4KB. However, if you specify larger size and then attempts to compress the partition, you face critical problems.

Another drawback of NTFS compression is decreased system performance. When you copy a compressed file to a different folder, the file is first decompressed, then copied to specified location, and after that compressed again. It can sometimes cause system crash and system failure.

An absolute backup proves a great help in such situations. You can easily restore data from backup and perform NTFS Data Recovery. However, if the backup is either not updated or available, NTFS Partition Recovery software is the only way to go.

These applications are powerful enough to methodically scan whole hard drive and extract lost partitions, along with stored data. NTFS File Recovery is pretty safe and easy with these utilities owing to their read-only conduct and graphical user interface.

Windows Data Recovery is the most comprehensive and effective utility to handle all kinds of partition loss scenarios. The software recovers NTFS5, NTFS, FAT32, VFAT, FAT16, and FAT12 file system partitions. It is usable with Microsoft Windows 7, Vista, 2003, XP, and 2000.