WD Align Software

M

Micik

Hello to all,

on one laptop I still have windows Xp because it contains some very important programs for industrial purpose. The laptop has 160 GB SATA drive and since it's older than 7 years I want to prevent the future problems and possible loss of data by replacing the drive in advance. The system and data are migrated to the new HDD vie Acronis backup/restore image.
However on WD HDD SATA mobile drive I have read that the drive needs to be aligned if used for win XP.
So I have found this information:
https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?p=128&lang=en
Now I'm not sure whether I need to use only one software (WD Align) or two (WD Align and WD align Media builder).
Is there any danger if I continue to use drive without aligning it?

Thank you!
 
If you do not align, you machine will run slower. More read and write cycles will be required during disk activity. (The image, being taken from an older disk, reflects a sector size less than optimal for your new disk)

My preference would be to make the bootable disk using the Media Builder, and boot from it into the align application.

Done this way, your operating system on the hard disk is idle when it is being shifted about to new locations on the disk, which usually is considered the safer option.

The third answer, in link below gives more detail, and contains a further link which you might like to read.

https://superuser.com/questions/331...rtitions-on-my-new-western-digital-hard-drive

ps Always have a back-up when doing anything of this nature. Most software that re-aligns 'partitions which contain data' stress that it is not completely risk-free.
 
Last edited:
Thank you very much. I have installed the alignment software and run it. I received a message that the drive is properly aligned. So far I haven't noticed any slowdown.

Thanks again.
 
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