Switch to NTFS gone awry...

[Zilla]

Because of a system crash, I had to clean install XP
Professional on a system that had been upgraded from ME.
I had left the system as a Fat32 when I upgraded, but
decided to use NTFS when I reformatted. Using the XP CD,
I selected "quick" format, and elected for NTFS file
system. Everything went smoothly, system back up and
running, no apparent issues, until I installed
PartitionMagic 8 - which advises me that the clusters in
the C partition are 512K, while the clusters in an
unallocated section are 4K. I knew this was an issue in
a conversion, but since this was going to be a clean
install I had assumed there was no need to worry about
the cluster size issue. How can I correct this (I am not
afraid to reformat - nothing but program files on drive
now anyway.) System is a Dell 8100 with an 80G HD.
Thanks in advance....
Zilla.

 

[archie]

partition magic can reformat with the data / application intact...just
convert that partition as is to NTFS

 

[Guest]

The partition was already converted to NTFS by XP - are
you saying to re-convert with PartitionMagic?

 

[Alex Nichol]

Because of a system crash, I had to clean install XP
Professional on a system that had been upgraded from ME.
I had left the system as a Fat32 when I upgraded, but
decided to use NTFS when I reformatted. Using the XP CD,
I selected "quick" format, and elected for NTFS file
system. Everything went smoothly, system back up and
running, no apparent issues, until I installed
PartitionMagic 8 - which advises me that the clusters in
the C partition are 512K, while the clusters in an
unallocated section are 4K. I knew this was an issue in
a conversion, but since this was going to be a clean
install I had assumed there was no need to worry about
the cluster size issue. How can I correct this (I am not
afraid to reformat - nothing but program files on drive
now anyway.)

Reformat is the best course. Do it as part of a reinstall of the system
after booting the XP CD direct. Enter Setup, and after the license
agreement take New Install. When it asks you to confirm where, hit ESC;
select and *delete* the current partition and make a new RAW one to be
formatted at the next stage

The important point is the delete. Without that it will just go ahead
and make a new install over the top of the old one, and will NOT handle
the cluster size problem. That I think arose because you were
reformatting over a FAT 32 with a data area that was not aligned on 4K
boundaries and it fell into the same trap that Convert does