Preparing Advanced Format hard drives for Microsoft Windows installations on HP Business Notebook PCs, Workstations, and Desktop PCs

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Preparing Advanced Format hard drives

for Microsoft Windows installations on HP

Business Notebook PCs, Workstations,

and Desktop PCs

Technical white paper

Table of contents

Executive summary ............................................................................................................................... 2

Identifying an Advanced Format drive .................................................................................................... 2

What does the Advanced Format drive mean to you? .............................................................................. 3

Partition alignment ........................................................................................................................... 3

Performance optimization.................................................................................................................. 4

Important tips ...................................................................................................................................... 6

Encrypting drives ............................................................................................................................. 6

Installing Windows Vista (prior to SP1) or Windows XP images ............................................................. 6

Avoiding a potential error associated with a Windows Vista deployment ............................................... 7

Creating a 1 MB-aligned partition ...................................................................................................... 7

Extending the partition during a Windows XP image deployment .......................................................... 9

Aligning drives in a RAID configuration ............................................................................................ 10

Using third-party deployment tools ................................................................................................... 10

Enhancing performance with many small writes (as with ImageX) ........................................................ 10

Validating partition alignment ............................................................................................................. 10

Using the Unattended Advanced Format Hard Disk Information Tool .................................................... 11

Using DiskExt ................................................................................................................................. 11

Using WMIC ................................................................................................................................. 12

Using DiskPart ............................................................................................................................... 12

Sample validation .......................................................................................................................... 13

Summary of HP Advanced Format tools ................................................................................................ 14

Frequently asked questions ................................................................................................................. 16

Appendix A: Technical background ..................................................................................................... 18

Partition alignment ......................................................................................................................... 18

Why alignment helps ...................................................................................................................... 19

Appendix B: Procedure for installing KB982018 into WinPE 3.0 ............................................................ 20

For more information .......................................................................................................................... 21

Summary of content (21 pages)

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Preparing Advanced Format hard drives for Microsoft Windows installations on HP Business Notebook PCs, Workstations, and Desktop PCs Technical white paper Table of contents Executive summary............................................................................................................................... 2 Identifying an Advanced Format drive .................................................................................................... 2 What does the Advanced Format drive mean to you? .
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Executive summary Designed for both SMB/enterprise users and consumers, this white paper provides instructions for preparing an Advanced Format hard drive for a Microsoft® Windows® installation on an HP Business Notebook PC, Desktop PC, Workstation, or Retail Point-of-Sale (POS) system. Historically, hard disk drives (HDDs) have used 512-byte sectors; however, this sector size is now limiting HDD capacity.
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Figure 1. HDD label featuring the Advanced Format logo What does the Advanced Format drive mean to you? This section outlines a range of scenarios involving the use of Advanced Format drives and describes actions that should be taken to optimize performance in each case. These actions typically depend on the OS being used.
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Note Because the Paragon Partition Alignment Tool reports that a correctly aligned 4 KB partition is misaligned, you should use the Unattended Advanced Format Hard Disk Information Tool to verify alignment. Performance optimization Tables 1 and 2 outline a number of scenarios involving the use of Advanced Format-aware drives and recommends actions you should take to optimize the performance of your HP system.
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Table 2. Actions to be taken to optimize system performance, with links to the appropriate downloads Scenario Actions All involving Windows 7 To optimize performance with Windows 7, either apply Microsoft Knowledge Base article 982018 or update to Windows 7 SP1 or later. For Intel® platforms, upgrade to Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST) 9.6 or later. For AMD platforms, upgrade to the latest version of the AMD Serial ATA (SATA) Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) Driver.
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F Use the Ghost command line switches –align=1MB to ensure the partition is aligned to a 1 MB boundary, and thus also a 4 KB boundary. Note: Although Ghost preserves the alignment in the image, the command line switch -align=1MB overrides the original alignment. Remember that specifying the incorrect combination of partition size and the ExtendOemPartition line – even with a non-Advanced Format drive – may result in a BSOD (as outlined earlier in this table).
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Avoiding a potential error associated with a Windows Vista deployment Applications built on the Extensible Storage Engine API (ESENT) that run on a Windows Vista-based system may report errors.
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Deploying Windows XP on an HP system For proper partition alignment when deploying Windows XP on an HP system, observe the following guidelines:  Remove the ExtendedOEMPartition command line from Sysprep (or other unattended installation method).  Allow the disk cloning tool to manage/extend the partition size.  Do not use the KB931760 WinPE registry patch on an HP system. In MDT and SCCM, ZTIDiskPart.wsf should be edited to prevent these registry settings from being applied automatically.
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Using DiskPart to force a 1 MB-aligned partition If desired, DiskPart can be used as follows to force a 1 MB-aligned partition: Important The clean command removes all partition information from the selected disk. DiskPart select disk 0 clean create partition primary align=1024 exit where command line switch align=1024 specifies a 1 MB partition alignment.
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Aligning drives in a RAID configuration If two or more Advanced Format drives have been configured for RAID, running the Paragon Partition Alignment Tool on these drives aligns partitions at 2,048 sectors. Since a starting offset of 2,048 supports most stripe-unit sizes, performance would be enhanced6 due to the elimination of redundant disk operations.
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Using the Unattended Advanced Format Hard Disk Information Tool The Unattended Advanced Format Hard Disk Information Tool contains a sample VBS script that calculates and reports the partition alignment. Note For a comparison with other Advanced Format Tools from HP and their current SoftPaq numbers, see Summary of HP Advanced Format tools. For any updates, check the HP website or SoftPaq Download Manager. Download and extract the contents of the SoftPaq. Run either AF-Check.cmd or AF-Check.
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Using WMIC 1. After the operating system has been installed, run wmic from the Windows command line. 2. At the resulting prompt, type partition list full to display information about system partitions. 3. Identify the offset value of each partition and divide by 4096. If the value is exactly divisible, the partition is aligned. Using DiskPart 1. Boot the system to WinPE 2.1 or later. 2. Execute the DiskPart utility to display information about specific system partitions.
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Sample validation The example shown in Table 3 shows the sizes and offsets associated with four partitions. All eight values must be evenly divisible by 4,096. Table 3.
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Summary of HP Advanced Format tools HP has released a number of SoftPaqs for disk information and partition alignment tools. While these tools are unnecessary if partitions have been 4 KB-aligned during partitioning, they may be useful for diagnosis or remedial action. For example, the Unattended AF Disk Information Tool has a useful feature that allows it to detect solid-state drives (SSDs) based on the Media Rotation Rate flag. Table 4 briefly summarizes the features of these tools.
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Tools work with the following: SUSE Linux X DOS 16-bit X WinPE 32-bit X Windows 32-bit X WinPE 64-bit X Windows 64-bit(5) X X X X X X Notes (1) Since different product divisions have different SoftPaq release processes, there may be multiple SoftPaqs with the same functionality. (2) The version of AF-CHECK.EXE in SoftPaqs sp55117 and sp56211 creates the correct file output; however, the error-level return code is incorrect if two or more disks are attached.
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Frequently asked questions I am not sure I have an Advanced Format drive. What should I do? Even if you are not sure you have an Advanced Format drive, you can still follow the procedures described in this white paper. Changing your installation methods to accommodate Advanced Format-compatibility does not negatively impact a drive with 512-byte sectors. Indeed, you are strongly recommended to make these changes as soon as possible. I’m an IT professional.
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Are there differences between Advanced Format drive models? Some drive models have noticeably superior performance, though slightly higher potential for data loss. Many vendors are switching to the Advanced Format drives without making any other changes. Some vendors have made the transition more transparent to users and have optimized the performance of their software by delaying disk writes.
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Appendix A: Technical background Since standards were introduced in 1956, industry-standard HDDs have used 512-byte sectors on their internal media. However, this relatively small sector size constrains storage capacity and has also caused manufacturing capabilities to reach a limit.
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The data on a 512e drive must be aligned to accommodate the following scenarios:  Short write accesses (less than 4 KB) Most accesses to a drive are 4 KB or greater. However, when the host writes less than 4 KB, all 4 KB on the media must be read, the old data modified with new data, and then written back to the media as a 4-KB physical sector. For the typical user, accesses shorter than 4 KB are rare.
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Appendix B: Procedure for installing KB982018 into WinPE 3.0 Important The following procedure is intended for the IT professional. Perform the following steps: 1. Download the Windows PE hotfix to your c: drive from http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=982018&kbln=en-us. 2. Unzip the download file by double-clicking on it. 3. The Windows6.1-KB982018-x86.MSU file should appear in your c: drive. Expand this file: a. Launch the command prompt with Administrator rights. b.
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For more information Microsoft KB article 982018 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982018 Microsoft KB article 2470178 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2470478 Information on AIK for Windows 7 http://technet.microsoft.com/enus/library/dd349343(WS.10).aspx AIK for Windows 7 download http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/detai ls.aspx?FamilyID=696dd665-9f76-4177-a81139c26d3b3b34&displaylang=en Walkthrough: Create a Bootable Microsoft Windows PE RAM Disk on CD-ROM http://technet.microsoft.