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Norton PartitionMagic 73
apply the operations, a prompt appears asking if you want to apply the changes now before
converting your FAT partition. Click OK to apply the changes and continue with the
conversion.
If you have any open files, a message appears indicating that the convert utility cannot
gain exclusive access to the drive and asks if you want to perform the conversion
immediately. If you type Y, your computer is shut down, and the conversion is done at
reboot time.
Converting FAT/FAT32 Partitions to 4K Aligned
Unlike an NTFS partition, the first cluster in a FAT or FAT32 partition is not located at
the beginning of the partition. Instead, all the FAT clusters come after a group of sectors
that are designated as a system area. Because the number of sectors needed for this system
area varies, the first cluster may not be aligned on any particular boundary.
During a convert operation from FAT or FAT32 to NTFS, all the sectors in the system
area must be converted to clusters. The cluster size of the resulting NTFS partition is
dependent on how many sectors are in the system area. If the number of sectors in the
system area is a multiple of eight, then the NTFS cluster size can be up to 4K in size (8
sectors x 512 bytes per sector equals 4K). If the number of sectors is not a multiple of
eight, then a smaller cluster size must be used when converting to NTFS.
When you convert a FAT or FAT32 partition to 4K aligned, the operation will check the
number of sectors in the system area to see if it is a multiple of eight. If it is not, it will
adjust the value by padding the number of sectors in the system area and shifting all the
data clusters accordingly. This will ensure that if you decide to convert the partition to
NTFS at a later time, it is possible to have 4K clusters on the resulting partition.
Converting NTFS Partitions to FAT or FAT32
Converting an NTFS partition to FAT lets you view the contents of the partition from
DOS, or Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP.
Converting an NTFS partition to FAT32 lets you view the contents of the partition from
Windows 95b/98/Me/2000/XP. However, a FAT32 partition will not be accessible to
Windows 95a and Windows NT.