Tell me more ×
Super User is a question and answer site for computer enthusiasts and power users. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 0 down vote favorite

Is there a sector-precise partition manager that can resize an NTFS partition? Accepting Windows software and Live CDs.

share|improve this question
The default cluster size of NTFS is 4KB - setting a size on sector-precision therefore would require to have an NTFS file-system with custom cluster size of 512 bytes (don't know if this is possible - I only know larger block sizes). – Robert Dec 13 '11 at 13:18
Physical sectors on new hard drives are 4KB, and erase blocks on SSDs are larger. Partitions should be aligned to those sizes. Windows' default 1MB partition alignment is a good compromise since it's a multiple of any sector or block size that a storage device is likely to use, but still rather small compared to the capacity of a modern storage device. – Wyzard Dec 13 '11 at 13:44
@Wyzard: Thankfully I am using an old drive (physical 512 sectors). – kinokijuf Dec 14 '11 at 21:01

1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote accepted

Not so sure about "sectors," but ntfsresize from ntfs-3g lets you resize NTFS filesystems to kibibyte precision, which usually corresponds to two "sectors". Most *NIX partition tools, including fdisk, parted and cfdisk lets you resize the partition to increments of 512 bytes, corresponding to one "sector."

All, or a subset, of the above are available on most Linux live disks, I myself prefer the Gentoo live disks, available here.

Check the corresponding man pages for instructions to the individual programs.

PS: Apparently the native windows partitioning software (diskpart) only allows MiB precision.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.