NTFS cluster size

[aengus]

I installed XP Home Edition about six months ago. Recently, I found I was
unable to use the NTFS compression feature. After investigating, I learned
that compression is not available for cluster sizes over 4 KB, and that the
cluster size on my NTFS volumes is 16 KB. I have no recollection of
attempting to override the XP default of 4 KB, so I don't know how this
happened. In any event, I'd like to know what, if anything, I can do to
change the cluster size to 4 KB while retaining the data in the volumes.
Perhaps a third party uitility?

 

[Tom Porterfield]

I installed XP Home Edition about six months ago. Recently, I found I
was unable to use the NTFS compression feature. After investigating,
I learned that compression is not available for cluster sizes over 4
KB, and that the cluster size on my NTFS volumes is 16 KB. I have no
recollection of attempting to override the XP default of 4 KB, so I
don't know how this happened. In any event, I'd like to know what, if
anything, I can do to change the cluster size to 4 KB while retaining
the data in the volumes. Perhaps a third party uitility?

Partition Manager from Paragon can do this -
http://www.partition-manager.com/.
--
Tom Porterfield
MS-MVP MCE
http://support.telop.org

Please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup only.

 

[aengus]

Thanks for your suggestion. I have Partition Commander from vCom (V 6) which
can resize the clusters on an NTFS volume, but it advises against changing
the size. I've been trying, so far without success, to get vCom to respond
to the question of whether I'll be safe in trying it with V6 or with their
latest version. Perhaps you know?

(Of course, even if I have to upgrade to the current version of Partition
Commander, it would cost a lot less thas buying Partition Manager.)

 

[Tom]

Thanks for your suggestion. I have Partition Commander from vCom (V 6) which
can resize the clusters on an NTFS volume, but it advises against changing
the size. I've been trying, so far without success, to get vCom to respond
to the question of whether I'll be safe in trying it with V6 or with their
latest version. Perhaps you know?

(Of course, even if I have to upgrade to the current version of Partition
Commander, it would cost a lot less thas buying Partition Manager.)

BootIt NG from http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

Will work, as you have that option. it is shareware 30 day trial fully
functional. You can download it from the download column on the left.

 

[aengus]

Thank you for the suggestion about BootIt NG. I couldn't find anything in
the Product Manual that describes how to resize NTFS clusters. I'll try to
contact them.

 

[Tom]

Thank you for the suggestion about BootIt NG. I couldn't find anything in
the Product Manual that describes how to resize NTFS clusters. I'll try to
contact them.

Well, no matter what, you should try (if at all possible) to back up your
data, because anything can go wrong during the process.

I am not sure if it will work, since your file system is already NTFS, but
you may want to try the "convert" command in XP, and see if it will align
the clusters to the standard 4KB.

1.. Open Command Prompt.
2.. In the command prompt window, type (no quotes)
"convert drive_letter: /fs:ntfs"

For example, typing convert D: /fs:ntfs would format drive D: with the
ntfs format.

Again, back up anything you can before doing this. I know BootIt will do
that, and it is better, because it will align the cluster correctly.

Read a little bit here, it is very helpful:
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm

 

[aengus]

Terrabyte responded today to my inquiry on NTFS cluster resizing. The current version of BootIt NG doesn't support this function. I also spoke with tech support at Partition Commander, and they said it will do resizing, although they advised me to back up all critical files beforehand,."just in case".

It's a jungle out there!