• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Minimum volume size

G

Goi

Diamond Member
Hi,

Is there a minimum volume size for Windows XP and other OSes?

I have a USB flash drive with multiple partitions and the partition size can be set on the fly. I've noticed that when I try a really small partition size such as 8KB, the volume shows up in explorer and drive management, but I'm unable to format it. When I set it to around 24KB or above, then I'm able to format it, but I still don't see the size available in disk management. Only when it's about 1MB or more do I see a bar in disk management showing the size of the drive.

Is this a Windows only thing? I'm don't think it has anything to do with file systems since the partition was not formatted to begin with.
 
Yes, I believe that I saw listed on the WINXP box the minimum (space) needed, but I dont remember the number. Im guessing 400MB, but that's for the OS only.

Everytime I formatted a volume using WINXP the default cluster size was 16KB. Therefore, an 8KB space would not be expected to format. A 24KB volume would be expected to format but with a one 16KB cluster.
 
I don't mean the min required to install Win XP. I mean the min that Win XP will detect/recognize.
 
Yes, you need enough space on the volume to contain the filesystem metadata for that volume. Small sizes like 8KB or 24KB are clearly NOT enough. Why would you ever want a partition that small in the first place? It's totally unusable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top