3 TB drives and the ASUS Disk Unlocker Sandy Bridge and LGA 1155 on the way 3 TB drives and Windows, practical test

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3 TB drives and the ASUS Disk Unlocker   Posted on 30/12/2010 at 16:29 by Marc - source: Papy

	A few weeks ago, ASUS announced the ASUS Disk Unlocker. Reserved for ASUS motherboards, this software allows you to unlock the space on a drive (depending on the manufacturer) beyond 2 TiB / 2.2 TB, at the same time as conserviting MBR type partitions. The attraction is of course being able to use drives that extend beyond this limit as your primary drive without losing the additional space and without requiring a UEFI bios and a 64-bit OS. We tested it on a P5B Deluxe motherboard based on the P965, along with a Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB (WD30EZRS) drive. We created an MBR partition of 2048 GiB on the drive. Disk Unlocker then allowed us to create a virtual drive of 746.52 GB, or the space unused on the drive, which it is then possible to use and format. Although an interesting feature, it remains fragile as on a PC without Disk Unlocker, the additional virtual drive won’t still be accessible. There’s nothing like native support!

Sandy Bridge and LGA 1155 on the way   Posted on 30/12/2010 at 14:23 by Marc

	You may already know, but a little reminder never goes amiss, Intel should be announcing its new 32nm quad core CPU range, Sandy Bridge, at CES in Las Vegas from January 6-9. They are destined for a new Socket, the 1155, which is not compatible with the current Socket 1156. Several days from launch and while waiting for the publication of our report on these new processors, we advise you to delay your purchase by a week or two yet.

3 TB drives and Windows, practical test   Posted on 30/12/2010 at 11:45 by Marc

	As you know, the arrival of hard drives with higher than 2 TiB / 2.2 TB capacities poses a few compatibility problems, especially in Windows. You have to go from LBA type addressing to Long-LBA and MBR partitioning has to be abandonned for GPT. To use such a drive as a secondary drive, Windows Vista and 7 are compatible, as is Windows XP 64-bit. Windows XP 32-bit doesn’t support these drives correctly. To use such a drive as your primary drive, you’ll need to use either Windows Vista or 7 64-bit, as well as a UEFI bios. What does this give in practice? We got our hands on a Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB (WD30EZRS). Secondary drive in Windows XP 32 bit This configuration isn’t supposed to be supported… something we can confirm. Windows XP 32-bit SP3 only recognised a 746.51 GB drive in our case! Note that Paragon has announced a get around for this problem, but it won’t be free. Secondary drive in Windows 7 32-bit This time, Windows recognised the hard drive as having a capacity of 3 TB, or more exactly 2749.39 GiB (Windows displays in GBs but processes in GiBs). By using MBR partitions, you can create a first partition of 2048 GiB, but the remaining space isn’t usable. If you convert the drive to GPT, which requires the prior deletion of existing partitions, you can use all 2794 GiBs. Primary drive in Windows 7 64-bit To install and then boot on a drive using GPT, you need a UEFI bios and Windows Vista/7 64-bit. With a 32 bit installation DVD or without the UEFI BIOS, the partitioning will be in MBR and only 2048 GiBs will be usable. Although the drive is already partitioned in GPT, Windows will refuse to install anything over the top. After activating the UEFI Boot option on the bios of our Intel DP55KG motherboard, the motherboard started in UEFI on the DVD and the installation took places in the standard way, whether in IDE or AHCI, and on a single 2794 GiB partition if desired (after having created a 2048 GiB partition then stretching it). If you deactivate the UEFI Boot on the motherboard after installation, the BIOS won’t be able to find a bootable peripheral.