[VoodooV]

Ok, We've got some new Dell Latitude E6420 and E6520 both with Advanced format drives.

I'm currently using WinPE 3.0 patched with KB982018 and used DISM to add the current Intel Rapid Storage drivers to my WinPE USB stick.

But what I'm not getting is how do you create a partition with Diskpart that is AFHDD aligned?

I read online that you can "create partition primary align=1024" but this doesn't work.

is this something I have to go to WinPE 3.1 for? I've searched through google and I haven't found squat. The only thing I've seen works so far is to make a misaligned partion, deploy my Win7 wim file and realign it later with Dell's paragon tools.

But how do I use diskpart to align the partition correctly right out of the gate so I don't have to use those Paragon tools?

Thanks in advance!

[jaclaz]

VoodooV, on 02 August 2011 - 11:21 AM, said:

But what I'm not getting is how do you create a partition with Diskpart that is AFHDD aligned?

Maybe you have the "wrong" (actually "right", but "old style" ) settings in the Registry?

Compare with:
http://www.911cd.net...topic=21186&hl=
http://www.911cd.net...pic=21186&st=18

The manual way should have worked allright though:

VoodooV, on 02 August 2011 - 11:21 AM, said:

I read online that you can "create partition primary align=1024" but this doesn't work.

Which EXACT version of diskpart do you have running?

jaclaz

[VoodooV]

The version reported when I run diskpart is 6.1.7600

the error I get when I do that alignment of 1024 is "The specified alignment is not a multiple of the sector size" Just for grins I tried 4096 too but same error.

I checked the registry. all the alignment entries are set to "0x00100000" except for "less than 4gb" which is "0x00010000"

[jaclaz]

VoodooV, on 02 August 2011 - 12:28 PM, said:

The version reported when I run diskpart is 6.1.7600

the error I get when I do that alignment of 1024 is "The specified alignment is not a multiple of the sector size" Just for grins I tried 4096 too but same error.

I checked the registry. all the alignment entries are set to "0x00100000" except for "less than 4gb" which is "0x00010000"

Version should be allright.

Maybe it's a different issue, i.e. the PE *somehow* not getting the "right" sector size from the disk (or from the disk controller)?

The "Advanced format" drives are 4096 bytes/sectors, right?

OR, is the partition NOT at the beginning of the disk?
http://technet.micro...465(WS.10).aspx

In other words, does this happen on a RAW disk when you run the EXACT command:

create partition primary size=<size> offset=n align=1024

of course with the actual value for <size>

or, if you prefer what happens if you only run:

create partition primary size=<size>

which alignment is created?

jaclaz

[allen2]

I thought windows versions younger than vista ( included ) would align automatically new partition without the need of doing anything. So winpe 3 being derived from Win 7 /2008 R2, there should be an alignment problem.

This post has been edited by allen2: 02 August 2011 - 01:39 PM

[VoodooV]

jaclaz, on 02 August 2011 - 12:44 PM, said:

Maybe it's a different issue, i.e. the PE *somehow* not getting the "right" sector size from the disk (or from the disk controller)?

The "Advanced format" drives are 4096 bytes/sectors, right?

I was concerned about this too. I thought that WinPE didn't have the right mass storage driver. Dell's documentation of AFHDD also refers to making sure you have the most current MSD drivers

http://www.delltechc...bid=f0S9sYjriTs

So I downloaded the RapidStore drivers from Dell. All the documentation I saw about adding mass storage drivers to WinPE talked about adding entries to a winpeoem.sif file in WinPE. I could not find this file for the life of me. (supposed to be in system32, but I couldn't find it anywhere) It later occurred to me that all that documention might have referred to older versions of WinPE so I used DISM to add the drivers to the boot.wim file. It claims to have added the drivers successfully...but how do I verify this? Is there a WinPE equivalent to Device Manager? I tried going into diskpart and doing a "detail disk" on drive 0 but none of the information seems to pertain to what driver it's using.

As a side bar. I have been trying to get on WinPE 3.1 in case that's the solution to this problem, but I'm also running into a weird problem there. I'm on a new computer so I downloaded both WAIK and the supplement isos. I mounted the isos with MagicISO and installed WAIK, then mounted the supplement iso, but when I run the xcopy command to copy over the supplement files. I get an error in the middle of the copy process that the target does not support symbolic links. Anyone know how to fix this? My google-fu has failed me on this issue too! Is there anyway to get a WAIK that has the supplement built right into it?

I'll have to run those diskpart commands tomorrow afternoon. so I'll get back to you then.

[VoodooV]

oh snap...I think I might know what happened. We use Win7 64-bit. But our WinPE is 32 bit. and when I added the mass storage drivers for RapidStore...I used the same 64 bit version drivers that we use for my Win7 image . Tomorrow i'll get the right drivers and use DISM to add in the 32-bit drivers and see if that clears it up.

[Tripredacus]

VoodooV, on 02 August 2011 - 04:15 PM, said:

All the documentation I saw about adding mass storage drivers to WinPE talked about adding entries to a winpeoem.sif file in WinPE. I could not find this file for the life of me. (supposed to be in system32, but I couldn't find it anywhere) It later occurred to me that all that documention might have referred to older versions of WinPE so I used DISM to add the drivers to the boot.wim file. It claims to have added the drivers successfully...but how do I verify this? Is there a WinPE equivalent to Device Manager? I tried going into diskpart and doing a "detail disk" on drive 0 but none of the information seems to pertain to what driver it's using

First, the winpeoem.sif is for the old version of WinPE, v1.5 based on XP.

You don't have a "device manager" per se, but you can see what drivers are in your boot.wim. In fact, you should use this to get those x64 drivers out before you put in the correct 32bit drivers.

DISM /IMAGE:c:\winpe_x86\mount /GET-DRIVERS

This will give you a list of the drivers you have installed, including the original filename and the new filename. Find your original filename, which will show the version too, and make note of the installed filename. You'd remove it like this:

DISM /IMAGE:c:\winpe_x86\mount /REMOVE-DRIVER /DRIVER:oem22.inf

Of course you already know how to add the drivers.

[VoodooV]

Success! It was the MSD drivers. Once I got the 32-bit drivers added through DISM, the rest was a standard diskpart of:

select disk 0
clean
create partition primary
select part 1
active
assign letter=c:
format fs=ntfs

both the dellafdt.exe tool and the paragon disk tools confirm that the partitions are properly aligned.

The only other thing I had to do was use dism to add KB982018 and the updated 64bit RapidStore drivers after laying down my Win7 wim image.

The only remaining issue is just what I mentioned before about copying over the WAIK supplement and getting the error about not supporting symbolic links. Anyone got any clues on that one? I'll try installing it on another machine to see if I can recreate the issue

EDIT: Thanks Tripredacus, I'll remember that. I didn't see your post until after I updated the wim with the 32 bit drivers so the 64bit drivers are still in there but it appears not to have caused a problem. Ultimately I want to get on WinPE 3.1 AND build a new Win7 SP1 sysprep image that has all this stuff pre-added in. but this at least gets me moving forward and understanding the factors at play here.

This post has been edited by VoodooV: 03 August 2011 - 03:00 PM

[Tripredacus]

I have often found it annoying that DISM doesn't check the arch of the OS before injecting a driver. This is even true of a WinPE image, which has no WoW but DISM will still install a 32bit driver in there if you tell it to. Probably would happily inject Itanium drivers too.

This all just leads to documenting what drivers are put in there. And if I have to do an update, need to look for the old ones, take them out, put new ones in. Oh well.

[VoodooV]

I finally figured out why I was having so much trouble with the 3.1 supplement. Turns out the iso was about 1/10th the size of what it should. I didn't notice it right away because since this was just an update, the smaller iso didn't raise any suspicions for me. So I go to download it again and I STILL get a smaller file. Third time was the charm however and all is well now.