To answer your question, the computer currently boots from legacy BIOS, though my goal is to switch it to use UEFI, which I can do; it's a toggle of sorts under boot options. I saw it once, though the prompts were gibberish to me, and I didn't understand what kind of information the system was looking for in order to make the switch successfully. My goal now is to use a Winstaller image off of a DVD Rom, though that's only because I don't have a USB drive large enough, and it will be moved to USB in future. Not to mention, I'm not even sure how to boot this thing off USB. I know that this particular model supports UEFI (I gave it a bios update that said so), though how do I tell if it also supports secure boot, and if so, what does that mean? Do I have to have secure boot enabled? I'd rather not. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Hodgson Sent: Friday, December 27, 2013 6:52 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Preparing a 3TB drive Hi, The drive alignment is taken care of in the Windows 8.1 installer when you partition the drives. Converting the boot process to UEFI is a different process. Are you going to install from a CD or USB? Does the BIOS support UEFI or Secure Boot? Andrew. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: 27 December 2013 04:04 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Preparing a 3TB drive NTFS is the file system, not the partition type. So you can have a GPT partition that is formatted as NTFS. And can someone please explain to me the alignment issue? I ask because I'm going to be switching my Latitude E6530 to use UEFI when I reinstall this weekend Windows 8.1. Right now, it's using legacy BIOS, though that's a holdover from Windows 7, and I didn't switch it. I'm switching it now though just before I reinstall, and I want to ensure that I reinstall it correctly. I mean, I might have to look up on UEFI.org the prompts and what they mean, especially coming from a BIOS world, though I have never heard anything about the drive alignment. I was under the impression that Windows was smart enough to handle everything itself. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Isaac Sent: Thursday, December 26, 2013 9:13 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Preparing a 3TB drive but he may want it as ntfs and not gpt ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew Hodgson" <andrew@hodgsonfamily.org> To: "Blind sysadmins list" <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Sent: Thursday, December 26, 2013 5:39 PM Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Preparing a 3TB drive
David,
Is the drive showing up at all in Windows 7? As it is a data drive only, you need only initialise the disk as GPT, then create your 3TB partition. You don't need to worry about the alignment. If you are using it as a boot drive, then you need to use an UEFI BIOS.
If you can't see the disk using Disk Manager or Diskpart, then something else is wrong. Can the BIOS see the disk?
Andrew.
-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: 26 December 2013 16:23 To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Preparing a 3TB drive
Hello,
To anyone with a 3TB internal or external drive, though internal is what I'm dealing with.
This is going to be in a system running windows7sp1, which is not detecting the drive. I've read that the drive needs to be prepared outside of windows, partitioned gpt and formatted ntfs then windows will see it.
I have also read about drive alignment and that this is crucial on larger drives and also the 4k boundaries on these larger drives instead of 512 byte boundaries.
The end result is I'm a little confused. The primary goal of these drives are going to be Windows data storage drives, with probably some Linux systems talking to them as well again for data storage.
I want to ensure that all operating systems can see them, that they are properly aligned, and have the correct 4k boundaries set.
What all do you use for this?
Thanks. Dave.
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