Hi all, When installing Win2K3 Ent. R2SP2 (x32) from scratch on a new box, is there a way for me to align the sectors on thesystem partitionthat will contain the OS prior to installing the OS? I know how to use diskpart to create/align the data partition. But won't the same performance penalties exist on the partition that Windows itself resides in if it is not aligned? Or, does Win2K3 R2 with SP2(slipstreamed)automatically align the OS partition that I create in Setup to install Windows into? I know that 2008 and Vista do this, but what about 2K3 SP2?

Hi, Since here is the forum for Exchange,I strongly recommend you to use Newsgroup for Windows to get relevant help. Discussions in General Discussion http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.server.general&cat=en_US_9741c575-ec92-42f8-85ba-00dfe1483cf5&lang=en&cr=US More information share with you: Microsoft IT Showcase: Volume Expansion Using Diskpart.exe http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=BCB9100D-698F-40A3-BF53-692D793C6E4F&displaylang=en

You could boot to the recovery console and prepare the partition before install. Win2k3 install allows you to create partitions within, but doesn't require this. You could have it all setup ahead of time.