Changing cluster size destroyed all data in the partition

[Estragon]

Dear Sir,

I have changed the cluster size from 512 bytes to 4096 bytes in a NTFS partition and Disk Director Suite Server 10 said that everything was fine, the operation completed successfully.

But, after restarting, Windows 2003 SP1 wouldn't boot anymore (It couldn't even show the Windows logo, just "Disk read error. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart).

I booted with the Windows CD and selected the Recovery Console, and then I typed "chkdsk c: /P".

chkdsk said it was recovering files, but it seems to be stuck at 50% and it's been running for 30 minutes already.

The system is the following:
HP Proliant ML350 G3
HP Ultra3 SCSI controller integrated in the mainboard (uses an Adaptec chip)
1.5 GiB of DDR-SDRAM (Registered ECC)
18 GB Ultra320 SCSI Hard Disk drive (15.000 rpm)

Is it a bug in Acronis?

[Estragon]

Hi again,

I forgot to mention that I changed the cluster size with the bootable Acronis CD.

Anyway, chkdsk stuck at 50% for hours. I just had to cancel it and tried to restart chkdsk again. But this time chkdsk said that there were irrecoverable errors and refused to run :(

So I've had to reformat the drive and restore the data from a backup tape (thank God that I did a backup beforehand!)

I don't understand why Disk Director said that everything completed successfully. The data in the disk was thoroughly trashed!

There should be a stronger error-checking algorithm in your program to avoid this massive data loss.

Please, I beg you to improve your program.

Regards.

[Acronis Support]

Hello Estragon,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Partition and Disk Managing Software (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/).

I'm afraid that since you have formatted your hard drive there is no way to find out what exactly has caused this problem. However, I am inclined to beleive that some kind of an accident took place.

If you encounter the same problem in the future then first of all please try to fix your hard drive's MBR as it is described in Acronis Help Post (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=55317).

If that does not help then please create Acronis Report in the way described below:

- Download and run Acronis Report Utility (http://www.acronis.com/files/support/AcronisReport.exe);
- Select the "Create Bootable Floppy" option;
- Insert a blank floppy disk in the A: drive and proceed with creation of the bootable floppy;
- Boot the computer from this diskette and wait for report creation process to finish;
- Collect the report file from the floppy.

Please submit a request for technical support (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/support/). Attach the collected report.txt file to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will certainly investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko