Installing Microsoft Windows on HP Workstations with Advanced Format Hard Drives

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Installing Microsoft

Windows

on HP Workstations with Advanced Format Hard Drives

Technical white paper

Table of contents

Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 2

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

Installing Windows on Advanced Format drives ...................................................................................... 2

Installing Windows using HP Recovery media ......................................................................................... 2

Summary of content (6 pages)

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Installing Microsoft® Windows® on HP Workstations with Advanced Format Hard Drives Technical white paper Table of contents Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 2 Identifying an Advanced Format drive .................................................................................................... 2 Installing Windows on Advanced Format drives ..................................................
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Introduction The hard disk drive (HDD) industry is migrating from the traditional 512-byte sectors to 4096-byte sectors. Drives with the larger sector size are known as Advanced Format (AF) drives. Some versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system may experience significant performance degradation if they are installed on AF drives without proper alignment of the disk partitions on the drive.
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1. Download and extract the Paragon Partition Alignment Tool (SP 55511), then burn the .ISO image to a CD. 2. Boot the system from the HP Restore Plus CD. 3. Follow the instructions up to the drive partitioning step (Figure 2). Figure 2: Drive partitioning screen 4. Prepare to change the media in the optical drive. Click Next. As soon as the drive partitioning task reaches 100% (Figure 3), replace the Restore Plus CD with the Paragon CD. Figure 3: Drive partitioning complete 5.
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6. Start the Paragon Alignment Tool (Figure 4). Follow the instructions, and make the appropriate selections. Note that we are performing partition alignment at this stage because there is no data on the drive, and therefore no possible data loss.
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7. Select all partitions for alignment (Figure 5). Figure 5: Paragon partition selection screen After the alignment operation is completed, the screen should look like Figure 6. Figure 6: Partition alignment complete 8. Remove the Paragon CD and replace the Restore Plus CD.
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9. Click Reboot (Figure 7), and follow the instructions to complete the restore. Figure 7: Paragon reboot screen Share with colleagues © Copyright 2012 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty.