Dell Latitude E-Family & Mobile Precision Reimage “How-To” Guide
Environment
Action
IRRT / RAID 0,1 & 5 Configuration
Use Alignment Tools(1) to ensure Advanced Format drive
partitions are properly aligned
Data Protection / Encryption
Use Alignment Tools(1) to ensure Advanced Format drive
partitions are properly aligned before encrypting the drive.
Note: Misaligned encrypted Advanced Format drives need to be
decrypted, then aligned and re-encrypted
(1) Please refer to the Partition Alignment Tools - Section 3.4
Partition alignment is required for older operating systems and is recommended for new operating systems in order
to insure proper hard drive performance and imaging between drives of differing sector sizes. An aligned partition
is when the starting offset of the partition is divisible by 4096 Bytes or by 8 for logical block addressing (LBA)
numbers.
3.4.1 Pre-Installation of Operating System
This section lists a few options for partition alignment pre-installation of OS:
- Using Ghost:
Ghost 11.5 will maintain the alignment state of the Gold/Master image. If the disk image is built and
aligned on a 512e/Advanced Format drive, the clones of that image will remain aligned. If the image is
built on a 512B, Ghost command line switch {-align=1MB} can be used to ensure alignment when
deployed to any drive.
- Using DISKPART:
DISKPART may be used to enable storage configuration or create a partition at an explicit disk offset
from a script, a remote session, or another command prompt.
Dell recommends using WinPE's (3.0 or greater) Diskpart.exe from Windows Vista or Windows 7 to
create the partitions for Windows XP installation. This will create a partition that is Advanced Format
aligned. Without PE, starting with Windows Vista or Windows 7 DVD to create the partition for the
Windows XP will create correct partitioning. On how to use DISKPART utility and how to divide the
offset value of the selected partition, refer to Microsoft KB Article 300415
3.4.2 Post-Installation of Operating System
The Paragon Alignment Tool (PAT) is a hardware agnostic tool available for download from the Dell
Support website in Dell Drivers and Downloads for your system under the SATA Drives section. This tool
can be used after an Operating System is installed to align the partitions of an Advanced Format drive.