Hi,
I’ve just bought a 2TB 64MB Cache Caviar Green, model WD20EARX - 00PASB0.
I’ve added it to my old Windows XP Pro desktop machine via a SATA cable to a SATA PCI expansion card (the motherboard is IDE with two SATA raid connections which I tried but it wasn’t recognised on.
The drive is recognised and using the Windows Disk Management tool I’ve formated it as per the instructions, NTFS etc… It is now seen by Windows Explorer as a 1.8TB drive. So far so good.
The label on the drive itself said it should be ‘aligned’ for optimal performance. I read the drive support page which also says that for XP it must be ‘aligned’. I’ve therefore followed the instructions and downloaded the ‘WD Align - Powered by Acronis’ tool. Here the problems start… the tool says that the drive is a ‘Non Western Digital Advanced Format’ but that it is aligned - you can’t do anyhting further with it.
The screen shot below shows this… (Disk 3)
Having searched for the answer to whether this is okay or whether I need to do more I’ve not found anything conclusive, and have read various posts about how it ‘must’ be aligned or the lifespan of the drive may be significant’y affected. I’ve not done any copy speed tests etc. as I have nothing to really compare against…
So (finally!) can someone explain whether this is okay / to be expected and / or how I can get the drive ‘aligned’ by the Acronis tool?
Thanks
