Western Digital Green advanced format?

ElectroBlaster

ElectroBlaster

ElectroBlaster

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I recently bought an 640gb WD Green drive from ocuk and it arrived today. The anti static bag suggests I use software from their website to format it in a special way if I am using windows xp. Has anyone here done this? Im a bit clueless as to why it needs doing?
 
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I think when XP was released the installer could only format drives up to 150GB. This was fixed after SP1. That might be the reason for the additional formatting software to get around that problem.
 
Just been googling and this seems to be more than just an xp limit on sizes, it seems all their new drives are using a different format which windows 7 and vista works with and xp doesnt or something along those lines. I have an older 750gb wd drive and it never needed any software from their site, it just worked from the get go with xp. I will use the software wd suggest and see if the performance is anygood, if its no good I will shunt the drive on and find another suitable one.
 
Yeah, I've got 4 of the 1TB advanced format drives. Windows XP and, I think I'm right in saying, all current partitioning and imaging programs can't align the partitions properly. This won't damage the drives in any way, but will reduce performance.

If you are using Windows XP or any imaging tool to set up your partitions, you should run western digital's WDAlign tool, available on their website, after setting up all the partitions, to line up the partitions properly.

I haven't used WDAlign since I'm using Windows 7, which can align the parttions properly. I'm not sure about Vista.
 
The WD Green advanced format drives perform well (quite a lot better than the EADS ones) and there's nothing to do if formatting with Vista or Windows 7. For XP, to avoid loss of performance you need to either use the WDAlign utility, or if you only have one partition on the drive then there's a jumper that can be added that makes the drive adjust its positioning to compensate for the default XP alignment.

You can also use third party tools to create the partitions which XP will then happily use, but you need to ensure they perform the correct alignment. The same goes for tools that restore partition images and alignment can be checked by a number of means including the OS DiskPart command line tool.
 
Some good info there guys :)

I am stuck with xp because of the video recording hardware I have here, it will not work on vista or 7 and I will not change it until there is a card that will work without having to mess around :(

Will the wdalign program create partitions for me? I just need to get this pc built up but havent got a lot of time.
 
Just one more question, if I were to wipe xp off and leaving the partitions intact will I have to run the align program again or is this a one off thing until the drive is wiped and new partitions are made?

thanx guys :)
 
You'll only need to do it again if you move or re-create the partitions. You won't need to do it again if you just reinstall the OS.
 
OK, so I've just bought one of these drives, and come across the sticker advising me to use the Advanced Drive WD Align program.


What I want to to, is use this new 2TB drive as a storage drive in my server.

I currently use an old P4 system running XP, as it's just primarily a file server.

By the end of the year, I plan to have my C2D system as the server, when I upgrade my main rig to i7, but for now, XP is what the server is running.

So, if I've read this correctly, the WD Align program simply formats, or at least realigns the partition after XP has formatted it? After this has been done, XP can read and write the drive correctly, with no further patching etc.

So, I was just wondering if this means that before installing the harddrive in my server, if I just connect it to my main rig, running Windows 7 x64, use that to format it, and I only want one partition, then it should be formatted and aligned correctly, and is then ready to simply be installed in the XP machine, no further work required?

Would XP then read and write to the disk correctly?
This also means that when the time comes, and I install my C2D mobo and CPU into the server, and probably Vista along with it, then the drive will continue to function correctly, without anything else being done?

While I'm at it, it also suggested running the WD Align program if you use cloning software.

I use an Acronis BootCD on my server, to periodcally make an image of the server boot drive.

I was also planning on cloning a current 1tb storage drive to this new 2tb drive, before removing it for another system.

I'm not entirely sure what the WD Alignment program does, and so why it's recommended to run if using a cloning program... what I mean is, if I format it correctly using Windows 7, before installing into the XP machine, would I still need to run the WD Alignment program to use Acronis?

Or indeed, by running Acronis, and backing up my current 1TB drive to it, would I need to run WD Align afterwards? Now I come to reread it, it does only sound like this is required if you're using it to clone a drive with an OS on it?

If you intend to use cloning software to copy any Windows operating system (Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7), to your WD Advanced format drive, the WD Align utility is required. Many cloning software tools are not current enough to take advantage of Advanced Format hard drives and by running WD Align, you will ensure your Advanced Format hard drive operates at full performance.
Click to expand...

I recently purchased Acronis Trueimage Home 2010. I'm not sure if this is, as they put it, "current enough" to support advanced format hard drives?

Obviously this is all new to me, when I ordered it I just assumed I'd connect it up, and off I go.... this is the first time I've heard of Advanced Format Drives ;)

Anyway, hopefully it's an easy thing to set up, and as I say, will continue to work well when I change the system from XP to Vista later in the year.

I suppose the other thing to do is to just "try it"

Format the drive in my Windows 7 box, install it in my XP machine. Use Acronis bootCD to clone the contents of my current 1tb storage drive to this new one. Boot XP, and see if it all still works ;) I guess if I check which options I check in Acronis, it won't backup the partition information, and therefore shouldn't destory the alignment info?

Thanks for any thoughts,
Vin.

EDIT: The alternative is to try to put the jumper across 7-8, which is says will be fine for running a single partition under Windows XP. My question would then be, what happens when I install Vista on that machine (on a seperate boot HDD) should I remove the jumper prior to installing Vista, and everything should just continue to work OK? I really don't fancy risking data loss on a 2tb drive!

I'm still not sure about using the jumper, and then Acronis to clone my old 1tb drive to the new one.

EDIT: Or I've just thought of a slow but sure way to get this going. I've just ordered a new Netgear router from OcUK, the DGN3500 with Gigabit. If I temporarily connect the new 2tb 4k drive to my Windows 7 system, use that to format and partition it, and then copy the contents of my 1tb drive over the network to my new 2tb drive, then it should be all done and dusted. Just pull it out, replace the 1tb drive with the 2tb drive in the server/XP machine, and no further work required? The partition/alignment info was done by Windows 7 so should be correct, I didn't use Acronis, and all my files are on the drive. It may take a while, but that's not at all important. what's important is that it all works. So is there any reason my idea wouldn't work? As I said, all the alignment stuff has been done by Windows 7, so assuming XP will then read and write to the drive properly, then I'm sorted? (or actually I just remembered the excellent Robocopy. I could use that to copy the contents of my old drive to the new one, once the alignment is correct)

Does anybody know if Robocopy also copies folders with NTFS compression applied?
I have a number of folders, with little used, and very compressable content, so aren't sure if Robocopy would manage to copy with compression intact? and/or folder shares?
 
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