Is it possible to create a C: drive with 64K clusters?

Eric, How exactly did you get this to work? Im wanting to format a 160gb WD Velociraptor to a 64k cluster. ( for my C drive with Windows 7 x64 ) Are you saying you have to partiton the drive first into two.. (a 200mb drive and in my case a 159.8 gig drive?) I have RC 7100 on a drive now and could format the other HDD first via the Win 7 Disk Management utility BUT I am wanting this new drive to niw become my C drive as the C: Im running on now is going into a RAID set-up once the new drive gets loaded with the retail Windows 7.

So,...At which point during the Windows 7 install do you press SHIFT F10???
No one in this thread has been clear on this AT ALL. I love how people in forums always say "do this or do that...its soo easy" without providing clear instructions. Im not that familiar with using DOS so any laymens step by step explanation would be greatly appreciated.

I've tried it a few times with the basic info from the last few posts and got nowhere fast. As with any disc formatting or software install if you miss a step or do something at the wrong time you're immediately screwed.
-Jeff

"During Win Install Shift F10:" was my first post, right not that specific

During Win Install, when it asks WHERE you want to install (the Disk/Partition selection, where you can chose format/delete/refresh/install drivers and more)... I could be more specific and do a screen shot (VirtualSetup) but I am being lazy right now...

@Jeff

The drive does need two partitions: The first partition is small, 200 MB, and is used for booting from, it must be the active partition. This partition does not have a drive letter as it is not normally visible from Windows. The second partition is your C: drive and is where you install your operating system to.

The way I did things was unpleasant because Microsoft assume they know better than you how to stage your computer.

I started off by doing a normal Windows 7 install. You could probably interrupt it at this point if you want to. The important thing is Windows 7 Setup will automatically create the two partitions you need.

The first problem is that the first partition is too small and will cause Windows backup to fail. So I ran Windows 7 setup again. After you tell setup you want to do a clean install and when it displays your disk layout you press shift-F10. This brings up a command shell where you can run diskpart.

What I did was delete the second partition and then re-size the first partition to 200 MB. Then I exited the command shell. After doing this you need to refresh the disk layout in the GUI - there is as button for this. Then I created the second partition with the GUI and let setup start to install again. Once again you can interrupt this part.

Yet again I ran Windows 7 setup and again when it display the disk layout in the GUI I use shift-F10 to bring up the command shell. At that point I run diskpart and do the following:

select partition 1
active
select partition 2
format fs=ntfs quick unit=64k

then I exit diskpart and the command shell, and refreshed the GUI for the disk layout. At this point you select your C: partition and then click next to complete the installation.

There is probably an easier way to do this than I have described, but I have not figured it out. Once I got what I wanted I stopped trying to find a better way.

I hope this helps

Cheers, Eric

Eric, if you read my fist post here I posted whats pretty much the easiest way possible, of course i used the size's for my own personal HDD but to each his own (size that is)