Advanced Format Drives in ThinkPads and using Windows XP

[bill bolton]

Lenovo will be delivering Advanced Format HDDs (4-kilobyte sector size) in many Thinkpad models from pretty much now on, and in all new ThinkPads from later in the year.

This probably has little impact on Win 7 users, but will impact anyone who want to continue to install XP on systems with Advanced Format drives. Note that all SSDs use Advanced Format.

There is a white paper here that discusses this.....

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail. ... MIGR-76990

Cheers,

Bill B.

[ozzymud]

For those not into reading... basically if using a newer OS (i.e. Any Post XP os, Windows Home Server, or Linux), no worries in partitioning... If for use in XP or earlier, use windows 7/Vista, Linux, or Western Digital Advanced Format Software to partition the drive as XP/older OS's don't create 4K aligned partitions

[Thinkpad Lover]

I thought that once you have previously formatted a drive using Windows 7 it can no longer be used by Windows XP. As a matter of fact, the drive is not even recognized in Windows XP setup. Or is that only if Windows 7 has not only formatted the drive but also been installed on the drive, In which case you can no longer reformat it using XP and set up XP on it?

Daniel.

[ozzymud]

Guess that would depend on the format... NTFS or exFat... XP doesn't support exFat out of the box, there is a MS addon (KB955704) to support it after install.

XP does not create partitions on the 4K boundary, so you can partiton then format to NTFS using 7, then install XP(leaving previous filesystem alone). Windows XP, Vista and 7 all use NTFS version 3.1

☺

[Merlin Witt]

Any drive can be reformatted as long as it still works... If one has the proper tools!
These two sources provide free disk wiping tools. IBM / Lenovo embedded controllers may or may not allow enough access for the UCSD program to work.


http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low ... rmat-Tool/

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml

Merlin

[Johan]

For those not into reading... basically if using a newer OS (i.e. Any Post XP os, Windows Home Server, or Linux), no worries in partitioning... If for use in XP or earlier, use windows 7/Vista, Linux, or Western Digital Advanced Format Software to partition the drive as XP/older OS's don't create 4K aligned partitions

Question: Does anyone have the (apparently free?) WD Alignment Tool? It seems to be available on their homepage - here (with information about its use here) - but I don't know what/how I need to register to be able to download it? I have several WD HDD's which could perhaps be used for registration, but perhaps some friendly forum member already have the WD Alignment Tool and are willing to make it available for me (e.g. via mail).

I want to try it for partition alignment on an IDE SSD (running XP, on a T42p) which has quite slow write-speed, probably owing to not being partion aligned.

Thanks in advance!

PS: Does anyone know how different this WD Alignment Tool is from e.g. the free tools GParted or Parted Magic?

Johan

[skie]

Long-time lurker here.

I got myself a 750Gb WD Black drive, and was looking for this exact same Align tool. I had to register to download the tool, and was asked for the Serial Number of the drive.

Too lazy to pull it out from the HDD bay, I just used CrystalDiskInfo which had the Serial Number handily displayed. After entering it on the WD site I was able to download the tool.

Of course, after running it I was informed that my drive was already aligned.. go figure!

Johan, if you would like me to e-mail the file to you I'd be glad to do so.

[Johan]

@ skie,

Welcome to the forum!

Thank you very much for your kind offer to e-mail me a copy of the free WD Alignment Tool! I just sent you a PM... so please check your mailbox.

Again, thank you very much for your kindness... I very much hope to see you again on the forum soon!

Best regards,

Johan

[skie]

It is very much my pleasure, Johan. Unfortunately the file was a little too big to e-mail, but I hope you've been able to download it directly from the WD site.

I originally installed Win XP SP2 (this was from factory recovery CD set of 6) on my T60p, and did all the necessary updates (including to SP3), etc. This was on a 160Gb Hitachi drive. When I bought the 750Gb Scorpio Black, I cloned it over, and the tool informed me that my drive was already aligned. As far as I can tell the original drive wasn't an Advanced Format drive.

Not sure if this info is of use to anyone, but I didn't need an extra step to ensure my cloned drive was aligned correctly.