The partitions should be aligned to get better performance from AF Hdds. To align them correctly is easy. Just partition them using a Windows 7 Setup disk. Then cancel the install and install XP/2003 instead. I don't know if XP 32 bit can read 4TB HDD. Because by the time I finally got a 4TB HDD I was already using XP 64. XP 64 handles them without any problem. Heck XP 64 can even read GPT partitions. So since XP64 is based on 2003, things might be the same there too.