formatting in 64k Blocks

[zjennings]

Hey,
I haven't formatted my hard drives in a couple months and don't remember seeing an option for this.

Is there a special program that I should be using to accomplish the 64k Block formatting? Or should it be listed in most formatting programs and in XP Pro Setup?

Thanks,
Z

[fidget]

From the command line, type 'help format' which will dump the command line info. I believe the option you want is '/a:64k' but you will want to check (I'm away from my PC right now).

[zjennings]

Hmm, I was going to do an NTFS format. Does that change anything?

~z

[fidget]

Originally posted by zjennings
Hmm, I was going to do an NTFS format. Does that change anything?

~z

All of that is spelled out in the help. I know you can specify either NTFS or FAT/FAT32, but I believe that it will keep the current format if nothing is specified.

[sixdoubleo]

Although I am definitely a command-line guy, in this case since you're not familiar with it, just do it the GUI way and you'll see the options.

Right-click My Computer, select "Manage". "Disk Management" Hilight the partition, right-click and select "Format". Then under "Allocation Unit Size" you can drop down and select 64k.

Then go back and do it from the command line.

[zjennings]

Sweet!

Thanks all!

~z

[phenixdragon]

Ewwwwww....command lines. :P

[ChuckD]

it there a way to format in 64k blocks outside of windows. Since i only have one hard drive, i cant format while running windows. i dont remeber coming across any options for block size in the built-in formatting utility during xp install.

[carlgar]

You can format while running windows, you just cannot format your system disk. I think you may be trying to say that you only have 1 partition. I would not recommend you reformat your system disk because it has a lot of very small files on it. You should create multiple partitions on your disk. The system partition should be formated at the default 4K blocks. You can then reformat the SageTV partition with 64K blocks.

[sixdoubleo]

Originally posted by ChuckD
it there a way to format in 64k blocks outside of windows. Since i only have one hard drive, i cant format while running windows. i dont remeber coming across any options for block size in the built-in formatting utility during xp install.

Well, I HIGHLY recommend you run two drives...this way you can isolate your system stuff from your data. If one or the other crashes, you don't lose it all. I like to ghost my system drive to the data drive or across the network. This way I have easy restore if I want to try an upgrade or whatever. (like testing Sage 2). I just picked up a Maxtor 40GB ATA-133 from Fry's for $38. Cheap and makes an EXCELLENT system drive.

You can certainly format your entire single drive with 64K by creating a boot disk and formatting prior to install, but you would eat up a LOT of space storing Windows on a 64K block partition.

If you only have one drive, I'd recommend you install XP and then at the partition screen hit "C" to create a partition and just create a 6-8GB partition for your system. Then once XP is installed, create a second partition for your data with the rest of the free space and format it with 64K blocks.

[stanger89]

Definitely multiple partitions is the way to go.

If you don't want to reinstall windows Acronis Partition Expert or Powerquest Partition Magic can resize/create partitions without destroying data (assuming you have some free space). Partitioning SW and Imaging SW are definitely some of the more handy progs available.

[phenixdragon]

Ditto, always put your OS on it's own. Even 3 gigs is plenty for the OS. I use 4 or 5 but I also install some apps with it like Office. Install Windows on it, and then use Disk Management to format the 2nd partition.