After I had bought the Advanced Format Drive WD5000BPKT and cloned the existing partitions created on another drive in Windows XP (not a wide-spread practice, I agree) I discovered the new drive was rather slow, so it required extra tuning with the special so called Acronis Align Tool.
Luckily this tool is provided by Western Digital free of charge for anyone who has bought the matching drive, and the customer is expected to register at the official site to download the tool.
Unfortunately the registration didn't work well then and it still has some troubles, which are regularly reported at the thread "AcronisAlignTool_s_e_2_0_111.exe NOT OBTAINABLE! How do I get this software?" (8 pages already!), and fixed by the support on an irregular basis.
I've already posted the link to the cached copy of the Acronis Align Tool to the thread, but it apparently violates the company's policy, so it was censored.
If anyone is still interested to download Acronis Align Tool without bothering to register at the site, here are few links to the cached version of the tool:
- ftp://ftp.css.com.ua/pub/drivers/HDD/WD/AcronisAlignTool_s_e_2_0_111.exe (the accessibility may be restricted in some countries)
- http://mirror.szepe.net/driver/AcronisAlignTool_s_e_2_0_111.exe (suggested 11/JUN/2013 by dmascus)
Note that it works only for Western Digital hard disks with Advanced Format feature.
[29/JAN/2013] If you tend to avoid Acronis' products or don't have a WD drive, but still want to use your old partitions, there is an option to utilize MinTool Partition Wizard which is capable of aligning partitions. You may just burn the provided bootable ISO-image on a CD/DVD and avoid installing the software on your system. Enjoy!
