Preparing Advanced Format hard drives for Microsoft Windows installations on HP Business Notebook PCs and desktop PCs - White Paper (Rev 3)

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Preparing Advanced Format hard drives

for Microsoft Windows installations on HP

Business Notebook PCs and Desktop PCs

Technical white paper

Table of contents

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

What does the Advanced Format drive mean to you? .............................................................................. 2

Important tips................................................................................................................................... 4

Validating partition alignment ............................................................................................................... 5

Using DISKEXT ................................................................................................................................. 5

Using WMIC ................................................................................................................................... 6

Using DISKPART ............................................................................................................................... 6

Sample validation ............................................................................................................................ 7

Enhancing the performance of small writes ............................................................................................. 8

Frequently asked questions ................................................................................................................... 9

Appendix A: Technical background ..................................................................................................... 11

Partition alignment ......................................................................................................................... 11

Why alignment helps ...................................................................................................................... 12

For more information .......................................................................................................................... 13

Summary of content (13 pages)

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Preparing Advanced Format hard drives for Microsoft Windows installations on HP Business Notebook PCs and Desktop PCs Technical white paper Table of contents Executive summary............................................................................................................................... 2 What does the Advanced Format drive mean to you? .............................................................................. 2 Important tips.............................................................
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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 or Desktop PC. Historically, hard disk drives (HDDs) have used 512-byte sectors; however, this sector size is now limiting HDD capacity.
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Windows Vista SP1 or later Windows XP Windows 2000 Linux FreeDOS You are installing a preinstalled image you received directly from HP A A A A B A A You are installing your own image using WinPE C C C C C C B You are installing your own image; you are not using WinPE D D D D D D D You are installing off-the-shelf (that is, nonHP) media A A E E E E E You are installing HP restore media A A E E E A B You are installing an HP F11 restore image A A B B B A B
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E You should first install the image and then run the Paragon Partition Alignment Tool to align sectors. Note: If you are downgrading your PC to Windows XP or Windows Vista, you are impacted since these OSs are not Advanced Format-aware. F Before beginning the re-imaging, ensure that the partitions on your Advanced Format drive have appropriate offset values (see Validating partition alignment). To optimize performance with Windows 7 or WinPE, apply Microsoft Knowledge Base article 982018.
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Replacing a drive on a Windows 2000 platform If you are replacing an older drive on a Windows 2000 platform, you may need to update the registry if you are using an Advanced Format drive as a replacement. The drives originally installed on Windows 2000 platforms tend to have capacities below 137 GB, which is typically less than an Advanced Format drive.
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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 divisible, the partition is aligned. Using DISKPART 1. Boot the system via bootable Windows PE 3.0 RAM media. 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 divisible by 4,096. Table 3.
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Enhancing the performance of small writes Performance degradation can occur on a Windows 7 or WinPE platform that performs many small writes to an Advanced Format drive. For example, using the ImageX command-line tool to apply a Windows image (.wim file) to an Advanced Format drive would take significantly longer than applying the same image to a traditional hard drive. This issue has been addressed in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 982018.
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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 4-KB sector alignment does not negatively impact a drive with 512-byte sectors. My operating system is Advanced Format-aware; however, I do not have an Advanced Format drive.
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Where can I build an Advanced Format drive-aware image? As long as it is validated, you can create a custom image on either a conventional drive or an Advanced Format drive. Is there any value to using the Paragon Partition Alignment Tool with a solid state drive (SSD)? Many modern SSDs feature an internal memory configuration that corresponds to 4-KB sectors.
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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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In both scenarios, the drive reads the data from the media, modifies the old data with the new data and then rewrites the modified data to the media. Depending on the rotational speed of the drive, this could add 16 – 22 milliseconds to a write. Read performance is not impacted; the drive reads the whole 4 KB of data into drive memory and only sends out the data sector(s) needed. Why alignment helps Alignment issues with older operating systems are based on the starting point of partitions.
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For more information Microsoft KB article 982018 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982018 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.com/enus/library/dd799303(WS.10).