Care and Maintenance Measures

Preparing Advanced Format HDDs for Microsoft Windows installations

Historically, hard disk drives (HDDs) have used 512-byte sectors; however, this sector size is now limiting HDD capacity. To address this limitation, the industry is moving Advanced Format drives with 4096-byte (4-KB) sectors – eight times larger than current drive technology. With 4-KB sectors, less space is wasted on the physical media, making the drive easier to manufacture and able to support higher capacities.

First-generation Advanced Format drives retain backwards-compatibility by using external SATA communications based on a 512-byte sector; however, these drives – also known as 512e drives – operate internally at 4 KB. Thus, any business notebook with a SATA interface can use an Advanced Format drive. Depending on the installed OS, extra steps may be required to optimize performance.

If an OS that is not Advanced Format-aware is being used, you may need to take steps to align logical sectors (OS) with physical sectors (disk media). For information about using Advanced Format drives to optimize the performance of your HP Business Notebook, refer to the following URL:

http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c02691731/c02691731.pdf.

Hard Drive Mounting Bracket

Be sure the hard drive is secured in the mounting bracket correctly. For more information, refer to the Maintenance and Service guide for your computer.

HP CMI – Client Management Interface

HP has integrated SMART health monitoring into our management console portfolio. This support is included in all editions of HP Client Automation and HP Client Manager 7.0 from Symantec. More information can be found at the following URL:

www.hp.com/go/clientautomation

Additional HP Recommendations for Optimizing Performance on Products with Older Operating Systems

∙It is important to have the latest BIOS, firmware, and driver enhancements for your computer. Check www.hp.com for the latest releases.

∙Install and maintain a virus protection program to prevent failures due to viruses.

∙Whenever possible, adjust the power management settings (power schemes) in the Control Panel to permit the hard drive to turn off when it is unused for an extended period of time. For example, adjust the power management settings if you work with applications that execute primarily from electronic memory (such as word processors) that do not have to access the hard drive very often.

∙Perform the Defrag operation periodically to optimize the reading and writing of data to the hard drive. During this process, data is moved to contiguous space. As a result, movement of the hard drive reading/writing heads is decreased. Please refer to the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles for information on how to defragment your hard drive:

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