baba_anubis Posted October 18, 2019 Share Posted October 18, 2019 Its my first time here, so very nice to meet you My System has Windows XP (Proffesional 5.1) installed, My hard drive is: WDC WD1002FAEX-00Z3A0 (1TB) I want to add another hard drive to this pc My question is: Will this hard drive will work with windows XP? Western Digital Purple 2TB 64MB Sata III WD20PURZ I read in here that someone said that: Quote the 64 meggers should be 4k if memory serves right, thus youll have to align it prior to use with anything older than vista/w7. But still, I would like to know if he is right or wrong...What kind of hard drives I must avoid as an XP user? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-H Posted October 18, 2019 Share Posted October 18, 2019 Welcome to MSFN! Your link doesn't work, it just redirects to the home page, I suspect it's not complete. I don't know about the technical limitations of new drives with XP, but I'm using a 2TB drive quite happily. It is connected via a SATA interface card though, not directly to the motherboard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IntMD Posted October 18, 2019 Share Posted October 18, 2019 (edited) Quick word of advice though - if you're going to utilise newer (say from 2010 above) hard drives + solid state drivers, it would be best not using XP's disk management tool when it comes to partitioning, formatting and alligning (especially when it comes to setup). Best to do with a GParted live medium for ex. Edited October 18, 2019 by IntMD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathwiz Posted October 18, 2019 Share Posted October 18, 2019 Short answer: The drive will almost certainly work. However, NTFS file system performance won't be optimal unless your partition is "aligned" on a 4K boundary. XP's built-in disk management will try to align the partition on an old-style cylinder/track boundary, which almost certainly won't give you the best performance. But third-party software can align your partition on a 4K boundary. The standard these days is to align partitions on not just a 4K (8-sector) boundary, but a 1MiB (2048-sector) boundary! This seems wasteful, but 1 MiB is such a tiny fraction of a 2 TB drive you won't even notice. Linux's GPartEd will do the job, and you can download a boot image that you can burn to a bootable CD or DVD. If GPartEd isn't to your liking, the free version of EaseUS's Partition Master will also do it. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baba_anubis Posted October 19, 2019 Author Share Posted October 19, 2019 Thank you for your comments Here is the original link: https://hardwarecanucks.com/forum/threads/cant-get-windows-xp-sp2-to-install-to-wd-caviar-black-640-gb-6-gb-s-64-mb-cache.38074/ I asked about it in another forum, since I didnt't knew how active this forum is, can someone please read it and tell me if this guy is right? https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/will-it-work-sata-3-64mb-on-windows-xp.3535900/ anything else that I should be aware of beyond what discussed in the link I addded? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathwiz Posted October 20, 2019 Share Posted October 20, 2019 (edited) Basically he's right. The only thing I'd add is that you don't need to use Win 7 to partition your new HDD; you can use third-party tools as well. I gave a couple of links; he mentioned MiniTool's Partition Wizard. I don't know if Partition Wizard will run on XP but it will definitely set up your HDD correctly. You just shouldn't use the tools that come with XP to partition your HDD. Once partitioned, you can format your HDD with XP; if the partition is aligned, an NTFS file system will be aligned too due to the way NTFS is designed. Edit: Link added. Edited October 22, 2019 by Mathwiz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PROBLEMCHYLD Posted October 20, 2019 Share Posted October 20, 2019 Gparted also does a great job at checking disk errors. I got it booting with Win 7 + Clonezilla + Slackware, using Clover as my UEFI boot manager. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-H Posted October 22, 2019 Share Posted October 22, 2019 On 10/20/2019 at 2:56 AM, Mathwiz said: Basically he's right. The only thing I'd add is that you don't need to use Win 7 to partition your new HDD; you can use third-party tools as well. I gave a couple of links; he mentioned MiniTool's Partition Wizard. I don't know if Partition Wizard will run on XP but it will definitely set up your HDD correctly. You just shouldn't use the tools that come with XP to partition your HDD. Once partitioned, you can format your HDD with XP; if the partition is aligned, an NTFS file system will be aligned too due to the way NTFS is designed. Just to say that Partition Wizard 11.5 does run fine on XP. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathwiz Posted October 22, 2019 Share Posted October 22, 2019 (edited) Good to know; thanks! I use it on my Win 7 system quite a bit, but since the XP system is a VM, there's not much point in trying it there.... Edit: Since it does work, I added a link to their download page to my previous post above. Edited October 22, 2019 by Mathwiz 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VistaLover Posted October 26, 2019 Share Posted October 26, 2019 On 10/22/2019 at 4:52 PM, Mathwiz said: Edit: Since it does work, I added a link to their download page to my previous post above. ... And their download page states (both Free and Pro editions): Quote Support Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10 (all editions, 32/64 bit). ... Makes one think they have purposely excluded (omitted?) Windows Vista from their support list... It's only when one digs further and visits the dedicated product page, https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html and then scrolls close to the bottom of it, to the Technical Specification section, that one finds Windows Vista is indeed supported... Given the recent debacle about the Comodo IceDragon browser, detailed in another thread, I've started to grow weary of the System Requirements software authors put up on their sites, especially in what concerns Windows XP and Vista; for the record, ICBB to install and verify true Vista support in MTPW... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-H Posted October 26, 2019 Share Posted October 26, 2019 It annoys me too, especially when people say their software still supports XP (and probably Vista too) when it actually no longer does! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caliber Posted October 29, 2019 Share Posted October 29, 2019 On 10/18/2019 at 11:52 PM, Mathwiz said: Short answer: The drive will almost certainly work. However, NTFS file system performance won't be optimal unless your partition is "aligned" on a 4K boundary. short answer. I don't recommend the purple drives for home storage and Acronis WD Align is the official tool to do the alignment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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