How change hard drive cluster size?

[David DeRolph]

I'm not sure I'm in the right newsgroup, so feel free to direct me to a
different one if appropriate.

My hard drive has 5 partitions and is set up under a dual boot
configuration, with Win 98SE on C and Win XP on F. All partitions were
originally formatted under FAT32, since Win 98SE was the original OS. I
later converted partition F to NTFS, using the Win XP conversion utility. I
now realize that conversion created a cluster size of 512 bytes on F. I
would like for it to be 4KB.

I'm wondering there's a way to get a 4KB cluster size on partition F without
doing a complete full reinstallion of Win XP and everything that's on
partition F. For example, could I copy everything on partition F to
partition G, then format F with 4KB clusters, then copy everything back to
partition F? I understand it's not this simple because the MBR would have
to be re-created. I believe there's a procedure for re-creating the MBR,
but I'm not sure that technique works where Win XP is installed on a
partition other than C.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Partition Magic 8 has a utility program to change cluster sizes:
http://www.symantec.com/partitionmagic/

Key Features
http://www.symantec.com/partitionmagic/features.html

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

Get Windows XP Service Pack 2 with Advanced Security Technologies:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/windowsxp/choose.mspx

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:

| I'm not sure I'm in the right newsgroup, so feel free to direct me to a
| different one if appropriate.
|
| My hard drive has 5 partitions and is set up under a dual boot
| configuration, with Win 98SE on C and Win XP on F. All partitions were
| originally formatted under FAT32, since Win 98SE was the original OS. I
| later converted partition F to NTFS, using the Win XP conversion utility. I
| now realize that conversion created a cluster size of 512 bytes on F. I
| would like for it to be 4KB.
|
| I'm wondering there's a way to get a 4KB cluster size on partition F without
| doing a complete full reinstallion of Win XP and everything that's on
| partition F. For example, could I copy everything on partition F to
| partition G, then format F with 4KB clusters, then copy everything back to
| partition F? I understand it's not this simple because the MBR would have
| to be re-created. I believe there's a procedure for re-creating the MBR,
| but I'm not sure that technique works where Win XP is installed on a
| partition other than C.

 

[David DeRolph]

Thanks for that suggestion. I agree that's an option. I'm also thinking
that, instead of buying Partition Magic 8, I can get another 80GB hard drive
(the size of my current drive) for about the same amount that Partition
Magic 8 costs. If I bought another hard drive, I believe I could basically
partition and format the new drive, making the new partition for Win XP a
properly formatted partition (NTFS with 4KB clusters), and then copy
everything from my current drive to the new drive using the drive
manufacturer's software tools. I could also buy an external enclosure for
my existing hard drive and use it for backup, including a mirror image of my
OS partition.

 

[Phydeaux]

Read here: http://aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.php for a free way to convert
using BootIt NG evaluation version.

 

[David DeRolph]

Thanks for mentioning that website. Unfortunately, I believe the technique
discussed there must be applied before doing the actual conversion. To
quote from it, "It is, therefore, important to realign the partition before
conversion, by moving all the data area up to a 4K boundary." Note the word
*before*.