Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users

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Yousuf Khan

BBC News - Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
"By early 2011 all hard drives will use an "advanced format" that
changes how they go about saving the data people store on them.

The move to the advanced format will make it easier for hard drive
makers to produce bigger drives that use less power and are more reliable.

However, it might mean problems for Windows XP users who swap an old
drive for one using the changed format. "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8557144.stm
 
BBC News - Hard drive evolution could hit Microsoft XP users
"By early 2011 all hard drives will use an "advanced format" that
changes how they go about saving the data people store on them.

The move to the advanced format will make it easier for hard drive
makers to produce bigger drives that use less power and are more reliable.

However, it might mean problems for Windows XP users who swap an old
drive for one using the changed format. "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8557144.stm
Click to expand...

Is there any way to do a low-level format on an older drive so that it
now has 4K sectors?

Way, way, way back when. Floppy diskette sectors started out at 128B,
the moved to 256B. IBM pioneered 512B sectors when they brought out
the PC in 1981. Of course, with the right parameters sent to the FD
1765 controller chip, any system could read the 512B sector diskettes.
 
Andrew Hamilton said:
On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:28:08 -0500, Yousuf Khan
Click to expand...
Is there any way to do a low-level format on an older drive so that it
now has 4K sectors?
Click to expand...

Well, you could try that together with a firmware patch for an
old MFM drive ;-)

Seriously, no. Even while SCSI drives theoretically can do this,
in practice they just lump sectors together and emulate the larger
ones.
Way, way, way back when. Floppy diskette sectors started out at 128B,
the moved to 256B. IBM pioneered 512B sectors when they brought out
the PC in 1981. Of course, with the right parameters sent to the FD
1765 controller chip, any system could read the 512B sector diskettes.
Click to expand...

Floppies have stepper motors, which makes software formatting very
easy. Modern HDDs have a linear morto type that has stepless
positioning. (The mentioned MFM drives also used stepper motors.)

That means AFAIK modern HDDs cannot be formatted by themselves,
but this is either done with extra head or with positioning
support equipment only attached to the drive in manufacturing.


Arno
 
WD has a utility to align for XP.
Click to expand...

Yup, and the current version of the utility won't work on an uninitialized
drive. I had to connect it to a USB adapter and initialize it on a system
running XP before the utility would see the drive.
 
Andrew said:
Is there any way to do a low-level format on an older drive so that it
now has 4K sectors?
Click to expand...

The days of low-level formatting are long gone.
Way, way, way back when. Floppy diskette sectors started out at 128B,
the moved to 256B. IBM pioneered 512B sectors when they brought out
the PC in 1981. Of course, with the right parameters sent to the FD
1765 controller chip, any system could read the 512B sector diskettes.
Click to expand...

That's because the controllers for those devices were basically the
system's CPU itself. These days they have their own intelligence, and
it's more like a couple of peers talking over a network these days.

Yousuf Khan
 
Andrew Hamilton wrote
No reason why it cant use standard 512 byte LBAs to the system its connected to.
Is there any way to do a low-level format on
an older drive so that it now has 4K sectors?
Click to expand...

Nope, not with standard ATA and SATA drives.
Way, way, way back when. Floppy diskette sectors started out at 128B,
the moved to 256B. IBM pioneered 512B sectors when they brought out
the PC in 1981. Of course, with the right parameters sent to the FD
1765 controller chip, any system could read the 512B sector diskettes.
Click to expand...

There is no separate controller with hard drives, that functionality is on the drive itself.
 
That will work for the first generation 4KB drives that emulate
512byte sectors, but not once 4KB comes out in native mode.
Click to expand...

You dont know that they wont be able to appear to have
512 byte sectors but just have those as part of 4K sectors.

Its perfectly possible for the drive to look like its got 512 byte sectors but actually has 4K sectors on the platters.
 
Andrew Hamilton said:
Is there any way to do a low-level format on an older drive so that it
now has 4K sectors?
Click to expand...

Yup... Try SCSITool...

But, note that I did this once and it somehow lowered the visible capacity
of a drive, I believe it has something to do with counting blocks in Windows
because Windows know to work with 512 byte drives only...

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By runf

Damir Lukic, calypso@_MAKNIOVO_fly.srk.fer.hr
http://inovator.blog.hr
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In message <[email protected]> "Rod Speed"
You dont know that they wont be able to appear to have
512 byte sectors but just have those as part of 4K sectors.

Its perfectly possible for the drive to look like its got 512 byte
sectors but actually has 4K sectors on the platters.
Click to expand...

Right -- I just said that, that's the "first generation 4KB drives that
emulate 512byte sectors"

XP apparently will not be able to cope with drives that present 4KB
sectors to the OS.

My guess is that we'll start out with drives that work only in emulation
mode, then drives that work in either mode based on a jumper (similar to
the -150 mode limiter for poorly designed SATA controllers), until
finally we get 4KB-only drives.
 
DevilsPGD wrote
Right -- I just said that,
Click to expand...

No you didnt.
that's the "first generation 4KB drives that emulate 512byte sectors"
Click to expand...

No reason why drives cant optionally do that forever.
XP apparently will not be able to cope with drives that present 4KB sectors to the OS.
Click to expand...

So all thats necessary is drives that can do that emulation
optionally and a ute to change that behaviour.
My guess is that we'll start out with drives that work only in emulation
mode, then drives that work in either mode based on a jumper
Click to expand...

Or do that electronically without using a jumper, like so many
do with all sorts of other config stuff like AAM etc etc etc.
(similar to the -150 mode limiter for poorly designed SATA controllers),
Click to expand...
until finally we get 4KB-only drives.
Click to expand...

Why would they remove that capability once its there ?
 
DevilsPGD wrote


No you didnt.


No reason why drives cant optionally do that forever.
Click to expand...

There will come a point when the 512 byte sector emulation will be
dropped, but it will be a good while yet. It won't be dropped for the
current generation of disk electronics - as you say, why remove it when
it's already there? But in future generations (for even bigger and
faster drives), I don't think it will stay.
So all thats necessary is drives that can do that emulation
optionally and a ute to change that behaviour.


Or do that electronically without using a jumper, like so many
do with all sorts of other config stuff like AAM etc etc etc.
Click to expand...

I expect this one will be by jumper for a good while to come. There is
not, as far as I know, a way for the host/OS/controller and the disk
electronics to agree on the best mode automatically - it would need a
new ATA command and that means changes to the OS. These things take a
long time in the windows world - by the time it gets realistic to have
such an automatic selection, it would be easier to drop 512 byte sector
mode entirely.

What is a more immediate question is what the default jumper setting
should be - set to 512 for compatibility with XP and older OS's, or set
to 4 KB native for faster speed with Linux and newer OS's ?
 
David Brown wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Click to expand...
There will come a point when the 512 byte sector emulation will be dropped,
Click to expand...

I doubt it. It costs them nothing to keep doing it, particularly
when there isnt even a physical jumper involved.
but it will be a good while yet. It won't be dropped for the
current generation of disk electronics - as you say, why remove it when it's already there? But in future generations
(for even bigger and faster drives), I don't think it will stay.
Click to expand...

Why shouldnt they drop that when there isnt even a physical jumper involved ?
I expect this one will be by jumper for a good while to come.
Click to expand...

Bet it doesnt.
There is not, as far as I know, a way for the host/OS/controller and the disk electronics to agree on the best mode
automatically
Click to expand...

Corse there is with the later OSs.
- it would need a new ATA command and that means changes to the OS.
Click to expand...

Nope, it can be done with a ute, just like AAM is.
These things take a long time in the windows world
Click to expand...

They didnt with stuff like AAM and the SATA mode.
- by the time it gets realistic to have such an automatic selection, it would be easier to drop 512 byte sector mode
entirely.
Click to expand...

Doesnt need to be automatic.
What is a more immediate question is what the default jumper setting
should be - set to 512 for compatibility with XP and older OS's, or
set to 4 KB native for faster speed with Linux and newer OS's ?
Click to expand...

Who cares ?
 
DevilsPGD said:
Right -- I just said that, that's the "first generation 4KB drives that
emulate 512byte sectors"

XP apparently will not be able to cope with drives that present 4KB
sectors to the OS.

My guess is that we'll start out with drives that work only in emulation
mode, then drives that work in either mode based on a jumper (similar to
the -150 mode limiter for poorly designed SATA controllers), until
finally we get 4KB-only drives.
Click to expand...

I think the only reason for getting 4KB sectors instead of 512B is the
error correction code overhead, not because 512B sectors aren't able to
represent the latest sizes of hard drives. Since the error correction
code is handled internally within the drive itself, the external
interface wouldn't need to be aware of this internal organizational
issue. It would be just another level abstraction that the internal
electronics of the drive will handle itself. If the OS writes sectors
out in 512B units, then the drive electronics will have to take care of
combining them in cache to 4KB units.

So once the electronics can handle 512-to-4096 transitions, I don't see
any reason why they would ever remove it from the electronics. Apart
from whether current OS internal structures can handle non-512 sector
sizes, you will also need to update the HD drivers to tell the HD`s that
they know how to 4KB sectors.

Yousuf Khan
 
David said:
I expect this one will be by jumper for a good while to come. There is
not, as far as I know, a way for the host/OS/controller and the disk
electronics to agree on the best mode automatically - it would need a
new ATA command and that means changes to the OS. These things take a
long time in the windows world - by the time it gets realistic to have
such an automatic selection, it would be easier to drop 512 byte sector
mode entirely.

What is a more immediate question is what the default jumper setting
should be - set to 512 for compatibility with XP and older OS's, or set
to 4 KB native for faster speed with Linux and newer OS's ?
Click to expand...


I doubt that this will be handled through jumpers. I`m pretty sure it`ll
be through ATA commands only, and they will likely add a specific new
ATA command which will likely return zeros on older drives, but ones on
the newer drives that will indicate to a driver that this is 4K capable.
You wouldn`t need to update the internal OS structures, since as they
say Vista and Seven might already be capable of variable sector sizes,
just not XP. So the only thing you`d need on Vista or Seven are slightly
updated SATA/ATA drivers.

Yousuf Khan
 
DevilsPGD said:
XP apparently will not be able to cope with drives that present 4KB
sectors to the OS.
Click to expand...

I don't see why. All it should need to do is load a hard disk
controller driver that reads 4k sectors from the disk and present them
to the OS in 512-byte chunks.

I had a meg-optical drive once which used 2048-byte sectors. That
worked fine once a driver was loaded for it.
 
Mike said:
I don't see why. All it should need to do is load a hard disk
controller driver that reads 4k sectors from the disk and present them
to the OS in 512-byte chunks.

I had a meg-optical drive once which used 2048-byte sectors. That
worked fine once a driver was loaded for it.
Click to expand...

Good luck in getting Microsoft to write anymore drivers for XP.

Yousuf Khan
 
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