Reformat NTFS hard drive cluster size

[Don Schmidt]

Any dangers or precautions?

I had Windows 98SE upgraded to Windows XP some months ago and I used the
built-in conversion from FAT32 to NTFS on my three SCSI hard drives. All
seems to be working OK but opening and closing windows seems sluggish. When
Windows XP did the conversion of the C drive, it created 512 b clusters
rather than the 4 kb clusters.

D and E SCSI drives have 4 kb clusters and no change is planned at this
time.

I plan to use Partition Magic version 8.0 (coming in the mail) to change the
C drive.

 

[Chuck]

Backup! Backup! Backup!

 

[Don Schmidt]

Thanks Chuck,

Shall do! Shall do! Shall do!

don

 

[Lil' Dave]

Dunno. Am getting mixed answers here.
My system, did an default NTFS installation of 26GB. Its clusters are 512K.
Did nothing to make it that way. The XP install CD did it all. The hard
drive capacity is 80GB.

 

[Don Schmidt]

Are they 512K or 512?

It's my understanding that 512 clusters are detrimental to program and file
loading.

 

[Lil' Dave]

The latter.

Are they 512K or 512?

It's my understanding that 512 clusters are detrimental to program and file
loading.

 

[Ron Martell]

Any dangers or precautions?

I had Windows 98SE upgraded to Windows XP some months ago and I used the
built-in conversion from FAT32 to NTFS on my three SCSI hard drives. All
seems to be working OK but opening and closing windows seems sluggish. When
Windows XP did the conversion of the C drive, it created 512 b clusters
rather than the 4 kb clusters.

D and E SCSI drives have 4 kb clusters and no change is planned at this
time.

I plan to use Partition Magic version 8.0 (coming in the mail) to change the
C drive.

If a partition is converted from FAT32 to NTFS it will most often end
up with a 512 byte cluster size because of a partition boundary
alignment issue. Read about it at
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm

Insofar as I am aware there is no method available to change the
cluster size of an existing NTFS partition. You would have to do one
of two things:

1. Backup the entire partition, delete it, create a new NTFS
partition to take its place, and then restore the backup to the new
partition. If a partition is created as NTFS then it will be properly
aligned and will use 4K clusters.

2. (risky in my opinion, although I have never tried it). Convert the
NTFS partition back to FAT32 with your new Partition Magic 8, then use
PM8 to first align the partition for NTFS and then convert it to NTFS,
That should give you 4K clusters, but the dual conversion is risky in
my view.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm

 

[Michael Stevens]

In

Any dangers or precautions?

I had Windows 98SE upgraded to Windows XP some months ago and I used
the built-in conversion from FAT32 to NTFS on my three SCSI hard
drives. All seems to be working OK but opening and closing windows
seems sluggish. When Windows XP did the conversion of the C drive,
it created 512 b clusters rather than the 4 kb clusters.

D and E SCSI drives have 4 kb clusters and no change is planned at
this time.

I plan to use Partition Magic version 8.0 (coming in the mail) to
change the C drive.

No problem with PM 8, but as others suggested, backup before conversion.
Backup should be a mantra for any intensive hard disk activity. Even if the
hard drive software is foolproof, a power outtage could cause data loss.
You will be able to convert to NTFS with the optimal cluster size using PM
8.
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm

 

[Don Schmidt]

Here's where I am at this time.

I've backed up the registry and all the files on my three SCSI drives.

PM 8.0 is running and I've selected Change cluster size (from 512 to 4kb)
and when I click "Apply'' I get an alert "There is no active partition. Are
you sure you want to apply changes?"

I don't know the consequences. Can't find any help in the Help file. So I
plan to call Symantec to explain.

Anyone here have an answer?

Don

 

[R. McCarty]

Active Partition marking is done to indicate which partition holds
the bootable OS. On any drives that don't contain an Operating
System it doesn't matter. It's just a "Nag", to ensure that a PM
session doesn't leave a disk without at least a single Active partition.

 

[Don Schmidt]

Partition Magic 8.0 reported I didn't have an active partition on my C
drive.

A call to Symantec Support resulted in "We don't recommend resizing the
clusters on the system drive."

My new plan:
I have three SCSI hard drives, all single partitioned. My E drive is only
for backing up the C and D drives.
I just backed up the C and D drives last eve.
I have moved the backup file from the E drive to the D drive.
Now I will attempt to copy all of the C drive to the E drive using XXcopy.
Exchange drive locations E to C and C to E.
Format the old C drive, now the E drive to 4k clusters.

Take care all,

Don