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4k hdd alignment needed. Free option?

C

clone63

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 16, 2010
Messages
327
Sooo WD won't let me download their advanced format alignment program for 'advanced format' hdd's, even after registering my wd5000bekt.
Is there a free option that will do this?
Paragon doesn't seem to be free anymore.
Or since it's freeware, could someone just send me the darn WD prog?
THanks in advance.
 
4k hdd alignment needed. Free option?
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Are you using windows XP or some older version of linux that does not already align partitions? I mean Vista and above or current linux distributions will automatically align your partitions when you create them so no steps are needed.
 
It was a cloning procedure, and most cloning programs do not compensate.
 
Understood. If you are cloning a drive that was formatted in XP it will not have proper alignment. However if you are cloning a drive that you partitioned in Vista or above you should not worry since it was properly aligned in the first place since Vista and above start the first partition aligned properly for 4K sector drives regardless if the drive was a 512 byte sector drive.
 
The drive was cloned to unpartitioned space. Thus the cloning program created its own (bogus alignment) partition.

I haven't encountered a cloning program that will write to an existing partition.
 
I thought you were talking about cloning a drive to an empty drive so that the partition layout would not change. You are talking about what I would call cloning individual partitions.
 
Alright, in any case..

I still need to align my drive. If no one has any software recommendations (or other), I'm genuinely stuck because I can't clone this drive without creating a misaligned partition that I can't fix, and I'm not reinstalling AGAIN either.

EDIT: WD5000BEKT is not an advanced format drive. SO why WD went on about it on the product page is beyond me.
Now I have to figure out why its performance is worse than my old seagate's. A natural presumption being its advanced format but..
 
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I'm pretty sure gparted will move the start of a partition to whatever location you tell it to.
 
zack_a said:
OMG
Click to expand...
This information resolves my issue completely. Thank you for the intense research and extenuating amount of time invested into your quest of spreading knowledge.

GParted will sure make a partition where I want, but as I've said any cloning program I've used wont write to an existing partition, so it will just be formatted misaligned. Though this is no longer a concern of mine.
 
I think Paragon alignment tool is still free. I got ttheir official free one off of bit torrent. If it isnt free then I am not sure what to use that is free. But check bit torrent. I only recommend downloading the one that is listed as official free though or else you will need to source a legit free copy of something else or buy one but I used it and it worked great on my adaptec raid arrays which have hard drives not SSD.
 
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