Ugh, 31k offset on my brand new SSD...how to fix without losing data?

[Golgatha]

Ok, I won't lose data, it's safely backed up. Now how do I minimize downtime and get my SSD realigned? I'm no Linux guru mind you, so if there is a round about way such as installing Win7 fresh and then cloning back my image to the new partition which will work, I'm all for doing it the slightly longer way. AS SSD is glaring at me with its red 31k-bad error...please help me make it stop!

 

[Golgatha]

Ok, I'm slightly confused now with this whole alignment thing.

Here's what I've observed so far.

1) The Intel SSD on my laptop is properly aligned and it was created by doing a fresh install of Win7 Pro onto it, so no worries if you're doing a fresh install of Win7 and presumably Vista from what I've read around the Internet.

2) Doing a long format (unchecking quick format basically) under Win7 caused the 750GB mechanical drive in my HTPC to get a 31k-bad offset, which was confirmed by me by running diskpart just to be sure. Sure enough the offset was 31k. Deleting the volume and then formatting with a quick format command sets the offset to 1024k, which is good stuff apparently.

3) Running Acronis from Windows or from a boot disk and setting the free space from 0.03MB (31k offset I thought) to 0MB before performing a recovery doesn't cure the offset issue.

My thought is to reimage my desktop's SSD to my Velociraptor 300GB, delete the partition on the SSD, do a quick format instead of a long one, and then reimage back the SSD with the partition alignment staying intact hopefully.

Just wondering if anyone has tried this procedure with success or failure to report?

 

[Golgatha]

Here's another potential work around for earlier Acronis TI versions. I think Acronis 2010 is supposed to preserve the partition alignment though. If I'm mistaken, this might be the cause of my dilemma because I've reimaged my desktop a few times using the Acronis software.

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=244075

Some more random information to wade through - http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=244950

Further reading on why I even care about all this - http://www.anandtech.com/show/2888

Ok this is for me now - Video, http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...E-amp-RESTORE-IMAGE-MY-FOOL-PROOF-VIDEO-GUIDE

One more resource - http://yourbeholder.blogspot.com/2009/12/windows-7-how-to-create-aligned.html

 

[Golgatha]

No help huh?

 

[Voo]

Just use GParted or Co and change the offset manually.. just some old linux live cd should do the trick - no idea about windows software for that stuff, but that's usually something which is far easier done with linux

 

[Hacp]

To be frank , it doesn't matter if you're alligned or not if you're usuing intel. You won't see much of a performance difference. Now, if you were using a drive like the Micron ReasSSD, then you need to make sure that you're alligned.

 

[Golgatha]

To be frank , it doesn't matter if you're alligned or not if you're usuing intel. You won't see much of a performance difference. Now, if you were using a drive like the Micron ReasSSD, then you need to make sure that you're alligned.

Well, I was not able to align it and figured it would be faster to just overhaul the system finally. Sucks to have to reinstall everything, but I've avoided it for far too long anyway. Put it this way, I wasn't even using AHCI in the BIOS because I had been dual booting WinXP and Vista64 back in the day. I then deleted the WinXP and went straight Vista64 and then upgraded to Win7. Basically the disc image had been transferred over and over from my original format for just WinXP about 5 years ago. It was time for cleaning house anyway.

 

[Golgatha]

Just wanted to post one last thing. I imaged my correctly aligned C300 SSD with the latest version of Acronis 2010, and then restored the image. The partitions and correct alignment were preserved following the restore.

I wanted to test this for my own knowledge, because I use Acronis 2010 as a safety net for bad driver installs, virus infections, and of course, hard drive failures. Hopefully this will give someone else on the big bad Internets a bit of peace sometime in the future if they're wondering if Acronis will ruin their alignment. Thankfully it does not and it works great.