Hard Disk Drive

Replacement and
Reformatting Guide
Introduction
Recent industry‐wide introductions of hard disk drives having a 4k byte sector size has made the task of
drive reformatting or reloading of Widows XP more complex than previous. All Compac computers
shipped with 4k sector drives are supplied with updated tools on‐board to handle the issue correctly;
however a new procedure (presented below) is required for replacement of older drives and for
performing clean Windows XP installations on the newer 4k sector drives. Windows 7 and later
operating systems are unaffected.

Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 1
The Procedure: Drive Replacement or Reformatting with Windows XP ..................................................... 2
Software License Implications of Replacing a Hard Drive............................................................................. 2
How to Obtain and Use Paragon Alignment Tool ......................................................................................... 3
Paragon Alignment Tool ‐ Quick User Guide ........................................................................................ 4
Appendix ....................................................................................................................................................... 7

Compac Sorting Equipment Ltd

11 Spring St, Onehunga 1061
PO Box 13 516, Onehunga 1643
Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Phone: +64 9 634 0088

Fax: +64 9 634 4491
Web: http://www.compacsort.com
Email: [email protected]
The Procedure: Drive Replacement or Reformatting with Windows XP
The following procedure is recommended for drive replacement or reformatting in a fail‐safe manner

1. Physically install the new 4k sector size hard drive as required;

2. Prepare the new drive by
o Restore a previous OS image using a cloning tool such as Norton Ghost;
o Create new partitions and format using Windows XP
3. Install Paragon Alignment Tool and use the tool to inspect the alignment status of all partitions.
Proceed with aligning all unaligned hard drive partitions. Exclude all removable USB flash drives
including CSEINTERNAL. Instructions for use of Paragon Alignment Tool are given in the below
section How to Obtain and Use Paragon Alignment Tool.

The criterion for deciding if hard drive alignment is required are given in the Appendix section of this
document.

Software License Implications of Replacing a Hard Drive

Replacing the hard drive does affect Sizer and InVision licensing because the hardware fingerprint used
to validate Compac software licenses is partly determined by the drive parameters. Replacing the hard
drive may void the current software license.

Ensure you have access to the Compac licensing web portal before replacing a drive.

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How to Obtain and Use Paragon Alignment Tool
To inspect the alignment status of drives and to perform alignment Compac recommend using the
Paragon Alignment Tool. The tool is a third party software product licensed on a per computer basis.
Licenses are available from Compac Service and Parts.

The alignment tool needs to be installed on the target computer after the drive has been prepared using
an image cloning tool or reformatted using Windows XP.

To complete the installation you will need the following.

Description How to obtain

Installation package Downloadable from

ftp.compacsort.com
/SUPPORT/HDD Paragon Alignment Tool

Alignment_Tool_10.0.16.13045_000.msi 33MB size

Serial number and activation key Obtain the serial number and activation key located in
a text file alongside the installation package on ftp.

Purchase a Paragon software license Order one unit of PSW‐PAT for every computer you
install Paragon Alignment Tool to.

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Paragon Alignment Tool ­ Quick User Guide
Prerequisite; The drive must be prepared by restoration of a previous OS image using a cloning tool such
as Norton Ghost or create new partitions and format using Windows XP before commencing the
following section.

Run the Paragon installer package on the target computer and enter the serial number and activation
code when requested. You might prefer to copy‐paste the 24 character code electronically.

Select the Reset on failure behavior, assuming you have already a drive image or operating system
installation CD on‐hand and could restore the drive again in the event of a crash if absolutely necessary.

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Select the drive partitions to align and exclude all removable USB devices including the CSEINTERNAL
and associated partitions.

Proceed with the alignment. The computer may reboot during the process to complete some of the
tasks outside of Windows. Alignment of a new Windows XP installation takes approximately 15 minutes.

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The process should eventually complete and display a success message similar to the following

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Appendix
Background Information about Drive Alignment.............................................................................. 7
When Alignment is Required ............................................................................................................ 8
How to Identify the Sector Size of Currently Fitted Drives ............................................................... 8
Task Guide for Drive Replacement ................................................................................................... 9

Background Information about Drive Alignment

Hard disk drive manufacturers have in recent years begun producing 4k byte sector size drives to satisfy
increasing drive capacity and cost reduction initiatives. The very long standing historic 512 byte sector
size drives are becoming obsolete.

New 4k sector drives can introduce performance problems with older non‐aware operating systems due
to potential misalignment between the drive sectors and the 4k blocks inherent in the NTFS filesystem.
The issue is a backwards compatibility quirk introduced by retention of the historic 512 byte addressing
scheme, also sometimes be referred to as Advanced Format in some literature. Ultimately a misaligned
partition will at least double the disk overhead by requiring two sectors of disk I/O for every one block of
file data transferred.

Summary of the problem

o The 4k sector drives continue to use 512 byte sector addressing, allowing a misaligned system to
boot and run without failing catastrophically however the performance will be significantly
impaired;
o Measurements of misaligned performance loss vary but can be up to 10 times slower;
o All non‐4k sector aware operating systems are affected including Windows 98, Windows NT and
Windows XP.

Diagram showing how misalignment occurs. Notice that when the NTFS blocks are not aligned with the
4k disk sector blocks, two sectors of disk read are required to fetch the one block of NTFS filesystem
data.

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New Compac computers supplied with 4k sector size drives have already undergone an alignment
procedure at the factory so optimum disk read‐write performance is already available without doing
anything, regardless of the operating system installed. These computers are supplied with a disk cloning
tool Clonezilla that preserves alignment when cloning to replacement hard drives. Clonezilla replaces
Norton Ghost as the standard disk cloning tool.

When Alignment is Required

The situations that specifically require drive alignment are

o When cloning from an existing 512 byte sector drive

or
o When formatting new partitions on a 4k sector drive using Windows XP or earlier OS

Compac supply the Paragon Alignment Tool to align all drives in the target computer. Paragon is a third
party software product purchased and licensed on a per‐computer basis.

How to Identify the Sector Size of Currently Fitted Drives

To identify if the computer has a 512 byte sector size drive fitted the drive model number can be
inspected

o The drive model information is displayed in the computer BIOS;

o Sizer software backups record the model number.

All the following drive models are 512 byte sector size

Hard drive model Capacity

All model numbers with the pattern STxxxxxxA 80 GB or less
Note these model numbers must end with A
ST380813AS 80 GB
ST380015AS
ST3160813AS 160 GB
ST3160815AS
ST3250318AS 250 GB

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Task Guide for Drive Replacement
Refer to the following task guide to estimate the work required for undertaking a drive replacement.

Replacement Scenarios Replacement Hard Drive

512 byte sector 4k byte sector
Existing 512 byte 1. Select a replacement 1. Obtain a copy of the
Hard sector size drive, can be any size Paragon Alignment Tool as
Drive providing it has per above instructions.
sufficient capacity.
2. Select a replacement drive,
2. Clone to the new drive it can be any size providing
using the Norton Ghost it has sufficient capacity to
utility. hold the existing data.

No alignment is 3. Clone to the new drive

required. using the Norton Ghost
utility.

4. Boot computer, install

Paragon Alignment Tool
and align the hard drive if
necessary.

Repeat for all computers

receiving replacement
drives, purchase and apply
a new Paragon license in
each instance.

Existing 4k byte 1. Select a replacement 1. Select a replacement

Hard sector size drive; must be at least drive; must be at least as
Drive as large as the existing large as the existing drive
drive (500GB at the (500GB at the current time
current time of writing.) of writing.)

2. Clone to the new drive 2. Clone to the new drive

using the Clonezilla using the internal
tool. Clonezilla tool.

No alignment is No alignment is required.

required.

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