14 DAY TRIAL // When deploying the latest Windows client and server releases, customers must make sure that they do so on a hard drive with NTFS cluster sizes no greater than 4096 Bytes (4K). Microsoft informed that otherwise the deployment process would fail. This is valid for both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. According to the Redmond-based company, the setup of the two operating systems will fail to install on partitions formatted with an NTFS cluster size larger than 4096 bytes (4K).
“The following error message is displayed. ‘Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition’,” the company noted. Microsoft explained that at fault for the issue are limitations associated with the Windows Boot Manager. In the eventuality in which BOOTMGR is placed on the system volume, the respective volume needs to be formatted with an NTFS cluster size that is no bigger than 4096 bytes (4K).
The software giant did explain that customers have a few alternatives. The first option is to separate the boot volume from the system volume entirely. “This should be used in scenarios where NTFS cluster sizes greater than 4096 bytes (4K) are needed or desired,” the company revealed. “System volume: Create a small volume to hold the BOOTMGR files (100MB is sufficient). Format the volume with a cluster size less than or equal to 4K. Boot volume: Create a second volume to hold the Windows operating system files. The cluster size can be greater than 4K (NOTE: File compression is not supported on volumes with NTFS cluster sizes greater than 4K).”
There is another option available to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 users. In the context in which they don’t necessarily need the operating systems to run on system volumes formatted with NTFS cluster sizes greater than 4096 bytes (4K), they can always reformat the partition so that the cluster size is less than or equal to 4K. This will allow the system/boot volumes to be placed on the same physical volume.