Here is a thread where WD's alignment utility has been applied to a drive that was partitioned and formatted by Windows XP:
http://community.wdc.com/t5/Desktop/1-TB-Caviar-Green-64-MB-Cache-WD10EARS/m-p/51210#M2531Sector Inspector shows that the partition's starting sector has been shifted from LBA 63 to LBA 2048:
http://www.4shared.com/document/qS_VnPYn/SIout.htmlNotice that SI shows all partitions, including the logical volumes in extended partitions.
I understand what you are saying about the 4KB sector size. As you say, the actual data are stored on the drive as 4096-byte physical sectors. However, when software accesses the drive, it still does so on a 512-byte LBA basis. That's why SeaTools reports "Max LBA: 3907029169" whereas HD Sentinel reports "Total Sectors: 488378646".
Windows XP only has trouble with drives that are 4KB sectored. It will still correctly handle 1TB+ drives that have 512-byte sectors. However, the maximum capacity that can be represented by an MBR partition table is 2TB.
Seagate's datasheet states that Seagate drives can be formatted in the standard way, without regard to 4KB sectoring. Misalignments are transparently handled in the firmware, without an impact on performance.
"Advanced Format hard drives use 4K sectors on the media, but still need to communicate to computers with legacy 512-byte sector logic. This is called 512-byte emulation and requires that physical hard drive partitions be aligned to logical partitions used by the computer. When this does not happen, partitions are said to be misaligned and hard drive performance is negatively impacted."
"Until now, the only solution to managing these misalignment conditions was to deploy software utilities to identify and realign partitions. This process requires extra time and process steps during hard drive integration. Seagate SmartAlign technology resolves Advanced Format misalignment conditions while preserving hard drive performance. Unlike other Advanced Format hard drives, Seagate drives with SmartAlign technology do not require time-consuming software utilities."
SeaTools identifies both the model and serial numbers of the enclosure (unit), and of the hard drive.
Unit Serial: NA0JAVKW
Unit Model: Seagate FA GoFlex Desk
Model: ST2000DL001
Serial Number: 5YD07L0Q
The ATA Identify Drive command returns the drive information, while the enclosure's details are reported by the USB-SATA bridge IC on the bridge board inside the enclosure.
You can use Microsoft's UVCView utility to see the USB information:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/USB_IDs/UVCView.x86.exeThe enclosure's serial number will probably be displayed in ASCII coded hexadecimal, ie "4E41304A41564B57".
Your drive's label does identify it as a Barracuda LP. However, my understanding is that previous 2TB and 1.5TB models were not Advanced Format drives, so perhaps yours is a transitional model. The LP drives also had 4 platters, not 3.
FWIW, the date code of 11141 corresponds to 2010 October 2nd:
http://www.bugaco.com/calculators/seagate_date_code.phpIf you run a HD Tune read benchmark, the maximum sustained data transfer rate should distinguish your drive from the earlier LP models. If it has 4 platters rather than 3, then its data rate will be about 14% less than the Green spec.
BTW, the Green datasheet states that the ST2000DL03 drive's rated Power-On Hours is 8760 (= 365 days). This should be 87600 hours, ie 10 years. I wouldn't be surprised if the technical documents had many more errors, especially while the Green drives are still under development.
