Dell Latitude E-Family & Mobile Precision Reimage “How-To” Guide
The following are the re-imaging guidelines needed to support Advanced Format HDDs. These requirements are
dependent on which Operating System will be installed and which method of deployment will be used.
3.1 Microsoft Operating Systems Advanced Format Aware Readiness
An Operating System is Advanced Format Aware if it meets the following criteria:
o It understands the concept of physical sector vs. logical sector
o It maximizes writes using multiples of 4k bytes
o Disk partition starts at the boundary of 4k sector
Not all current Microsoft Operating Systems are Advanced Format Aware (refer to the Table below). A system
configured with an Advanced Format drive and an operating system that is not Advanced Format aware can
experience sector misalignment, resulting in performance or compatibility issues.
- Some extra steps may be required for re-imaging even with Advanced Format Aware Microsoft Operating
Systems, Install/upgrade to the latest Intel Storage driver
- Apply the applicable Microsoft KB article
- Partition alignment
such as (Please refer to section 3.2 for detailed instructions):
Operating System
Advanced Format
Aware
Microsoft Windows 7 SP1
Yes
Microsoft Windows 7
Yes
Microsoft Vista SP1
Yes
Microsoft Vista
No
Microsoft XP (all versions)
No
Microsoft Windows PE 3.0 or Later
Yes
Microsoft Windows PE older versions
No