Dangers of deleting C:\$Extend\$UsnJrnl:$J:$DATA

Solution 1:

The USN journal's purpose is to provide a complete list of filesystem changes to various userspace programs like virus scanners or file indexers (e.g. "Everything").

You can safely delete this journal, using fsutil on Windows, or rm on Linux (ntfs-3g):

fsutil usn deletejournal C:

It's a good idea to recreate it later though:

fsutil usn createjournal m=0 a=0 C:

Do not confuse the change/USN journal with the one used by NTFS itself, which is kept in $LogFile. The NTFS journal (log) is a required component, used to prevent filesystem corruption.

Solution 2:

The correct command line to delete the USN journal is: fsutil usn deletejournal /D C: