R
rcebolleto
Ok, so I'm trying to optimize some servers that all have the 63 sector
(32256-byte) partition offset instead of the true 64 sector (32768-byte)
offset. Normally when I prep a server, particularly an Exchange of
VMWare (on windows) box, I use Diskpar to create my true 32k offset
partitions to minimize sector-boundary overlaps in the disk cache and
possibly on the actual writes.
However, I am working on some machines that have already been prepped -
OS loaded, all apps, all GPO's and AD and everything else. I'd rather
not format and redo the entire job if it can be avoided - I just want to
'nudge' the entire partition up one sector into alignment. However, all
of the partition tools I have played with (all the major ones like PM,
Acronis, Norton) deal in much, much larger chunks than a single sector -
they only adjust partitions several megabytes at a minimum. They clearly
are just designed for reorganizing space on a macro scale, not fixing
sector alignment issues.
I also tried getting clever about it and fooling with a hex editor and
dd (on a test drive, not on anything important) and *almost* got what I
wanted but I keep running into problems getting the bootloader to find
NTLDR or with NTFS not finding any files in the directory, or only some
of them, or worse. So before I dig into this again and kill another
weekend trying to figure out how to hand-craft the MBR, PBR, volume
extents and whatever else to make this work, I was wondering if anyone
heard of a tool that does this job?
THX!
(32256-byte) partition offset instead of the true 64 sector (32768-byte)
offset. Normally when I prep a server, particularly an Exchange of
VMWare (on windows) box, I use Diskpar to create my true 32k offset
partitions to minimize sector-boundary overlaps in the disk cache and
possibly on the actual writes.
However, I am working on some machines that have already been prepped -
OS loaded, all apps, all GPO's and AD and everything else. I'd rather
not format and redo the entire job if it can be avoided - I just want to
'nudge' the entire partition up one sector into alignment. However, all
of the partition tools I have played with (all the major ones like PM,
Acronis, Norton) deal in much, much larger chunks than a single sector -
they only adjust partitions several megabytes at a minimum. They clearly
are just designed for reorganizing space on a macro scale, not fixing
sector alignment issues.
I also tried getting clever about it and fooling with a hex editor and
dd (on a test drive, not on anything important) and *almost* got what I
wanted but I keep running into problems getting the bootloader to find
NTLDR or with NTFS not finding any files in the directory, or only some
of them, or worse. So before I dig into this again and kill another
weekend trying to figure out how to hand-craft the MBR, PBR, volume
extents and whatever else to make this work, I was wondering if anyone
heard of a tool that does this job?
THX!