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

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 enhanced

due to the elimination of redundant

disk operations.

Running the Paragon Partition Alignment Tool ensures support for the stripe-unit sizes associated with

most RAID configurations, including RAID 0, 1, and 5.

Using third-party deployment tools

Platforms that are Advanced Format-aware may experience alignment issues when used in

conjunction with third-party deployment tools. Contact the particular vendor for requirements for

running their deployment tool.

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. Thus, if your Advanced Format drive is larger

than 137 GB, you must enable 48-bit logical block addressing (LBA) support in the system registry in

order to make all of your storage available. Perform the following steps:

1. Start the registry editor (regedt32.exe).

2. Browse to and select the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters

3. From the Edit menu, select Add Value and add the following registry value:

Value name: EnableBigLba

Data type: REG_DWORD

Value data: 0x1

4. Quit the registry editor.

Enhancing performance with many small writes (as with ImageX)

Among the issues addressed by Microsoft Knowledge Base article 982018 is performance

degradation associated with a Windows 7 or WinPE platform performing 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.

To optimize performance, you should apply the appropriate hotfix to your HP Business Notebook or

Desktop PC, or Retail POS system, as described in the following procedure.

Procedure

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.

Compared to a scenario with misaligned drives