Confusion about SSD alignment when cloning/restoring in TI Home 2011
I have an Original installation of WinXP on my HHD. Want to clone/restore image to a new 128GB SSD and use this instead of HHD.
I understand that alignment of the SSD is important for performance.
Not exactly sure I understand aligning but here is what I I understand so far -
The SSD needs to be aligned with an offset that is divisible by 4096 so an offset of 1MB (1024 bytes), for example, is what is needed. WinXP doesn't align the drive to that. If I run msinfo32 I see that it has an offset of 32,256 bytes i.e. 63 sectors.
I first tried doing a backup of the HDD and then restoring it to the SSD. Even though WinXP booted and ran OK from the SSD, the offset was still 32,256 bytes. Looking through Acronis articles I saw this -
" If you restore or clone a disk image to an SSD disk, the offset will be automatically set to the default 1024kb (2048 sectors).
If you restore a partition backup to a target empty partitioned disk (SSD), the target SSD disk will keep its original offset."
So I figured that I needed to clone the drive and not just restore a backup image of the drive to the SSD in order to make sure the alignment is correct.
I did that but it still has the 32,256 byte offset.
I tried using Diskpar to create a partition with an offset of 1024 which it does do but whether I clone the drive or restore an image of the drive to the SSD the offset always reverts to the regular WinXP offset of 32,256.
I saw a post that said to use the manual mode and that you could set the free space before the partition to 1MB to give you the offset needed.
When I do a clone and set everything manually I get to the settings screen for setting the partition (Edit).
My SSD has a capacity of 119.2GB and the HDD I'm cloning is 84,77GB.
The screen shows -
Partition size 119,2GB
Free space before 0.03 MB
Free space after 0MB
I assumed that I could make the Free Space Before 1MB but it won't change. I have to decrease the Partition Size by one "click" which now shows this -
Partition size 119,2GB
Free space before 0.03 MB
Free space after 7.844MB
If I now try to decrease the Free Space before, one "click" to decrease it, it just swaps the after and before sizes -
Partition size 119,2GB
Free space before 7.844 MB
Free space after 0MB
If I decrease the Partition Size again it just increases the Free Space After by another 7.844 to 15.69. If I decrease the Free Space After by one "click" it gives this -
Partition size 119,2GB
Free space before 7.84MB
Free space after 7.84MB
If I enter a 1MB Free Space Before it just reverts to 0,03 and adds the extra free space to after -
Partition size 119,2GB
Free space before 0.03 MB
Free space after 15.69MB
I must be misunderstanding something here. Can someone point me in the right direction?
Jeff,
This thread might help (how to use Diskpart to prepartition the SSD with AT 2010 - you can use this for ATI 2011 as well).
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/31423
Or this thread (how to use 2011 to restore to an SSD).
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/31073#comment-96363
GroverH, unfortunately not able to do that.
My experience with the xp version of Diskpart is that the partition is NOT created with the 1mb freespace. The vista or Win7 diskpart will create the 1mb offset.
Thanks Pat L,
I read these links when I researched the problem. I think I did pretty much the same thing. I used Diskpar to create a partition on the SSD with a1024 offset. This is what MSinfo32.exe reports after -
Description Disk drive
Manufacturer (Standard disk drives)
Model Disk drive
Bytes/Sector 512
Media Loaded Yes
Media Type Fixed hard disk media
Partitions 1
SCSI Bus 1
SCSI Logical Unit 0
SCSI Port 6
SCSI Target ID 0
Sectors/Track 63
Size 119.24 GB (128,034,708,480 bytes)
Total Cylinders 15,566
Total Sectors 250,067,790
Total Tracks 3,969,330
Tracks/Cylinder 255
Partition Disk #3, Partition #0
Partition Size 119.24 GB (128,034,275,328 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset 1,024 bytes
Shows a 1024 offset. This is how it is before I try clone or restore. Is there anything there that might cause the problem I'm having?
If you use clone over to the disk, this will erase your offset.
If you restore, you have to restore one partition after the other and not include the MBR+Track0.
Pat L,
I think you got it!
Used Diskpar (not Diskpart) to create the partition with 1024 offset as seen in the MSinfo32 results.
Used the Rescue disk to do a Backup of the HDD and did a Restore to the SSD making sure "not include the MBR+Track0" (maybe this is where I went wrong before?) and didn't change anything else.
Booted and got MSinfo32 report that shows I still have the 1024 offset!
Thanks for the help!