Windows XP Windows XP users will have to upgrade by next year

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Windows XP users will have to upgrade by next year Link Removed due to 404 Error Link Removed due to 404 Error Written by Link Removed due to 404 Error Wednesday, 10 March 2010 11:57


Hard-drive changes


Even die hard Windows XP users will have to upgrade next year because their favourite operating system can't handle the new generation of harddrives.

By early 2011 all hard drives that come onto the market will use an "advanced format" that changes how they go about saving the data people store on them. It will mean that hard drive makers can produce bigger drives that use less power and are more reliable. But it will not run on Windows XP which has a hard-drive formatted into blocks 512 bytes in size.

The 512 byte format dates from the days of the floppy and is now hopelessly out of date. David Burks, a product marketing manager for storage firm Seagate said that the fine resolution on hard drives is causing a problem, he said, because of the wasted space associated with each tiny block.

Each 512 byte sector has a marker showing where it begins and an area dedicated to storing error correction codes. In addition a tiny gap has to be left between each sector. In large drives this wasted space where data cannot be stored can take up a significant proportion of the drive, he said.

The new formats use 4K sectors that means about eight times less wasted space but will allow drives to devote twice as much space per block to error correction. Windows XP was released before the 4K format was decided upon while Windows 7, Vista, OS X and versions of the Linux kernel released after September 2009 are all 4K aware.

Although there are emulators for Windows XP being developed they will slow the drive right down.

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New Harddrives May Force Windows XP Upgrades

are about to undergo one of the biggest format shifts in 30 years. By early 2011 all hard drives will use an "advanced format" that changes how they go about saving the data people store on them.

The move to the advanced format will make it easier for hard drive makers to produce bigger drives that use less power and are more reliable. However, it might mean problems for Windows XP users who swap an old drive for one using the changed format.

Error codes

Since the days of the venerable DOS operating system, the space on a hard drive has been formatted into blocks 512 bytes in size. The 512 byte sector became standardised thanks to IBM which used it on floppy disks...
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Upgrade????

Here is another report on the harddrives that will become the standard during the year 2011. It hardly seems that a 5 millisecond slowdown (even though that represents a 10% longer seek time) in seeking files in XP with the new harddrives would cause the operating system to be deemed unserviceable. XP will continue to be a completely usable OS for many years to come. A 5 millisecond increase in seek time for those few existing systems that will require a harddrive replacement will not, in itself, obsolete the operating system.



New Hard Drives Could Spell Trouble For Windows XP / Infopackets.com
 
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Lol, us XP users won't "have" to upgrade. What about the millions of hard drives already out there? They're not going anywhere. That's like saying die hard floppy disk users had to upgrade to CD.

How come I can format a hard drive within XP to be 4096 bytes? Doesn't that mean it support it? Or is it that when you install XP, it makes it 512?
 
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New Harddrives May Force Windows XP Upgrades

are about to undergo one of the biggest format shifts in 30 years. By early 2011 all hard drives will use an "advanced format" that changes how they go about saving the data people store on them.

The move to the advanced format will make it easier for hard drive makers to produce bigger drives that use less power and are more reliable. However, it might mean problems for Windows XP users who swap an old drive for one using the changed format.

Error codes

Since the days of the venerable DOS operating system, the space on a hard drive has been formatted into blocks 512 bytes in size. The 512 byte sector became standardised thanks to IBM which used it on floppy disks. While 512 bytes was useful when hard drives were only a few megabytes in size, it makes less sense when drives can hold a terabyte (1000 gigabytes), or more of data.

"The technology has changed but that fundamental building block of formatting has not," said David Burks, a product marketing manager for storage firm Seagate.

This fine resolution on hard drives is causing a problem, he said, because of the wasted space associated with each tiny block.

Each 512 byte sector has a marker showing where it begins and an area dedicated to storing error correction codes. In addition a tiny gap has to be left between each sector. In large drives this wasted space where data cannot be stored can take up a significant proportion of the drive.

Moving to an advanced format of 4K sectors means about eight times less wasted space but will allow drives to devote twice as much space per block to error correction.

"You can get yourself into a corner where you cannot squeeze much more onto the disk," said Steve Perkins, a technical consultant for Western Digital.

This shift also allows manufacturers to make more efficient use of the real estate on a hard drive.

"We can put more data on the disk," he said. "It's about 7-11% more efficient as a format."

Slow down

Through the International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association (Idema) all hard drive makers have committed to adopting the 4K advanced format by the end of January 2011.

Hard drive makers have begun an education and awareness campaign to let people know about the advanced format and to warn about the problems it could inflict on users of older operating systems such as Windows XP.

This is because Windows XP was released before the 4K format was decided upon.

"The 512 byte sector assumption is ensconced into a lot of the aspects of computer architecture," said Mr Burks from Seagate.

By contrast, Windows 7, Vista, OS X Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard and versions of the Linux kernel released after September 2009 are all 4K aware.

To help Windows XP cope, advanced format drives will be able to pretend they still use sectors 512 bytes in size.

When reading data from a drive this emulation will go unnoticed. However, said Mr Burks, in some situations writing data could hit performance.

In some cases the drive will take two steps to write data rather than one and introduce a delay of about 5 milliseconds.

"All other things being equal you will have a noticeable hard drive reduction in performance," said Mr Burks, adding that, in some circumstances, it could make a drive 10% slower.

In a bid to limit the misalignment, hard drive makers are producing software that ensures 512 sectors line up with 4K ones.

Those most likely to see the performance problems are those building their own computers or swapping out an old drive for one that uses the new format.
New Harddrives May Force Windows XP Upgrades
 
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Hello, EVERYONE,

This seems to me to be very important for us all to at least be aware of, and was a very informative post. I am modifying the part I quote below for my own added emphasis and "take" on this:

Much thanks to whoosh for this post. I'd like to see comments also on how this would be affected by FAT16 & 32 format slack space. Because of the increase in filesizes of the newer filetypes, I figure we all use 4K anyway, so I haven't thought about the affect on Slack space and for that matter, fragmentation. I wonder if this may have an effect upon the various defraggers. At least on FAT; we all know that NTFS doesn't fragment, right! (Laughing maniacally).
DrWattsOn
 
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I think it's about time,
Windows XP is great and all, but let's face it, it's probably near the point of being as in-secure as Windows 98.
Installed 150 security updates every week isn't fun either.


It's 9 years old, it's time to let go.
 
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New Harddrives SATA Only?

I presume that these new harddrives will be available only as SATA drives. That would limit how old a motherboard these drives COULD be used on without an additional IDE/SATA converter.

My question would be; if a user wished to install a "new generation" harddrive as an additional drive (second, third, etc) in an existing Windows XP computer with an "old generation" IDE drive (retaining the original drive as "C" drive), would the two play well with each other?

I am also curious how many weeks, months, or years it will take to exhaust existing stocks of the old harddrives when they go out of production. Will they even immediately go out of production when the new ones become standard?
 
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John3347! How do we know

john3347 said:
I am also curious how many weeks, months, or years it will take to exhaust existing stocks of the old harddrives when they go out of production. Will they even immediately go out of production when the new ones become standard?
Click to expand...
How do we know they are currently in production???
Maybe we should all FORCE the retailers to sell us these drives for their true value:
no longer produced, and soon, no longer supported?
DrWattsOn
 
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Harddrive Support?????

DrWattsOn said:
How do we know they are currently in production???
Maybe we should all FORCE the retailers to sell us these drives for their true value:
no longer produced, and soon, no longer supported?
DrWattsOn
Click to expand...


Well, they are still available at online outlets where I commonly shop. I really have no idea of the factory production schedules for the changeover. I am assuming that they will be phased in over some amount of time and every wholesaler and retailer in the world will not supply the old product until the agreed-to changeover date and immediately after that specific day none of the old products will be available.

Explain to me about harddrive support. I have been buying and using harddrives for more than 20 years and I don't remember one instance of a harddrive being "supported" in any way except factory warranty protecting the buyer against manufacturing defects. If I buy a Seagate Barracuda harddrive today, it will be "supported" against manufacturing defects for 5 years whether it is the currently produced product 4 years and 364 days from now or not. I don't see support - or lack of - as being in question.
 
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Hello, john3347! You're correct, I used the wrong term...

Thanks for the correction. I am referring to functionality of the device, and for example, to my knowledge, no OS has formatting compatibility with the old 5 1/4 floppies, or the old reel-to-reel tape drives! Although the OS uses "built-in" programs for that, it's code.
I see the new low-level layout as being different media, that happens to use the same external form factor. The current new 4096 byte/sector media will, I think, necessitate new code for formatting, defragging, and perhaps other jobs (compression, imaging, iso?). Probably including such software as Gibson's SpinRite.
I also noticed in my previous posts, I confused the concepts of sector vs cluster, as re: "slack space".(embarrassed)
Great points, very intriguing subject, I think there'll be more effects than we expect. Thanks again for your posts and clarity.
DrWattsOn
 
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Touche' DrWattsOn



You did quite adequately explain harddrive support in reference to operating system. I am a little touchy and tend to be overly defensive on the subject of support because of those who "preach" death of an OS when - and for no other reason than because - mainstream support ends. This declaration of doom is predicated on nothing other than the fact that no one continues to answer the manufacturers' or the publishers' help line. It in no way makes the operating system (or other product) any less serviceable than when someone did answer the telephone. (An example of this is my Windows 2000 machine that has not had mainstream support for several years and is about to lose security updates in a few weeks, doesn't even know these facts, and is unaffected by them) As you point out, the - what were they 12" or 18" - discs on computers in glass walled, temperature controlled rooms, most likely would not be supported by current operating systems. Likewise, one day a few years from now, it is likely that then current operating systems will no longer support harddrives manufactured prior to 2010. (Conditions espoused by those users mentioned above, however, will be reality when cloud based subscription services become commonplace)

At least the first generation of next year's harddrives will include necessary design features to work with legacy software (OS) with a seek time penalty of approximately 5 milliseconds (a 10% time increase) which will be a negligible amount of time for those few users who must replace their harddrive in an older computer that does not have an OS written for the new harddrives.
 
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Its too early to jump from Wondows XP

I think its too early to say that windows xp will be outdated or need to be upgraded. Since there are millions of users and organizations using it fruitfully.

Also , there releases so many useful utilities for security. Link Removed - Invalid URL etc. every week.

There will be an up gradation but it will take some time.
 
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I read a blurb on the new SATA III hard drives recently. WOW, double the speed of the current SATA II drives. There was nothing said about different sector size though.
I allus thought that was up to the program formatting the drive....... Eh?

When I format a drive with partition magic, I can specify the sector size I want. I've allus gone with the default.

But this will kill you..........I'm still running XP-Pro-SP3, on a HD formatted in FAT-32 mode.
Gads!, I love it,,,,,it just runs SO FAST!

Years ago, when I upgraded from Windows 98SE to XP-SP1, I elected to keep the current format. I've never changed it.
It does grieve me that I can't run Windows 7 on a FAT-32 partition too.

But having to upgrade my OS because someone is coming out with a new HD? BS!
I've got enough SATA II drives here to last me another 50 years.

Cheers mates!
 
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@OldTimer,

The New Technology File System had its reasons; some said it was a "real" file system. That would suggest you are using an "unreal" or "fake" file system, but I'm sure you are quite convinced that, yes, those files sure LOOK real.

Same thing with cars, wives, and most other manifestations of happiness: you may THINK you are happy, but actually you are WRONG. Personally I don't tread into that territory myself. Mmm—I guess I do concerning capitalism, but I mean with important things.

The fewer years a person has to his own age, or to his own experience, the more dire will be his warnings that older-timers will have to change their ways, or their file systems, or their OSs.

And of course the more insecure I am, the more I'm likely to tell you to do like me. In politics or in purchasing a car or in setting up a computer. The more sure I am of myself, the more laid-back I'm likely to be. Why would it matter, if I weren't worried about my own choice? But, if my new car was maybe more than I could really afford and that was nagging me, well, I'd feel reassured if you got yourself into the same mess.

All that aside, however, we will be sending a man around in the morning to ensure you are using NTFS, SATA, and Windows 7.

It is for your own good.
 
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Once MS has an XP-Mode, at least this installation is novice friendly, that does not require 7Pro or better - it will be easier for those to move up. Using a 3rd party VM and installing in there XP or Vista for backward compatibility?

Yes, possible...I do that myself to get one old software working in 7/64 Home Premium but, honestly, the typical Win novice is not going to master the seamless integration with 7 - too many irks and you have to know your way around it. I know at least 2 dozen people globally around me who tried 7, got software compatibility issues, and returned to XP.

Meh, for Microsoft and stopping XP!
 
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In computerese, we have AND gates, OR gates and Exclusive OR gates.
I can tell from the posts on this and other forums, that most users are operating their PC in Exclusive OR mode.
For them it's either XP OR W-7, but never both. That can be insanity, for anyone who may still actually like XP and need it to run certain programs.

So my advise to all my friends and PC customers, is to install a second HD in their system to install and run Win-7, and just leave XP alone, as long as it's still running OK.

I personally do a lot of experimenting with different Operating Systems and variations of each. So currently I have four different OS's on four different HD's all on different SATA II ports on my motherboard.
By pressing the F11 key on boot, I get a boot menu where I can select what drive I want to boot from. My XP drive is the default, (it's on the first SATA II port) so XP will boot up if I don't use the Boot Menu. If I get tired of an OS, I can just reformat that HD and not interfere at all with my other OS's.

Yesterday, I installed my last HD, a 250gig Samsung drive that was given to me. I have it formatted FAT-32 and I'm going to use it exclusively as a Storage drive, for things like Ghost Backup Image Files and backup copies of My Documents, my Email folders, address book, etc.

So far, I've found nothing that Win-7 can do for me, that Windows XP-Pro-SP3 can't do. XP runs all the programs that I need and use daily, and it runs them FAST.
I have W-7 tweaked and tuned for max. efficiency, but it's still like something from Mars. Adding the Classic Shell and shutting OFF UAC, and adding "Take Ownership" has made W-7 a little more palatable, but it's still a monster.

XP will remain on my default HD till H*** freezes over.:-bd

Cheers Mates!
 
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It's been well over a year since this thread was last responded to, but still thought I'd like to throw in my 2 cents. XP is going nowhere for at least a couple of more years. The official end of support date is 04/08/2014, but many users will still run it until their computers breaks, and will probably try to find another to replace it then.

That being said, I love Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. It's been the best Windows OS that I've ever used, by far. But it doesn't replace my favorite version of XP, the Media Center Edition (a modified version of XP Pro). I watched the Super Bowl streamed on the OS, probably not in real time by a minute or so, but I enjoyed the game & the screen was beautiful & didn't break up at all. I suppose my ISP speed has a lot to do with that. But XP MCE must have a few extras in it, because it's overall a better looking screen than other versions of XP.

I know very well that XP (all versions) has security holes in the OS. But keeping it updated, and having a modern browser installed, such as Google Chrome, Firefox or Opera installed makes a difference. Plus it's imperative to have a paid, top notch AV/IS solution installed, along with the lifetime version of MBAM Pro. This, coupled with good computing habits (staying away from cracked software that who knows what's in it), avoiding malware laden sites (MBAM Pro is excellent for helping with this), will keep the XP user safe for years to come. And above all, avoid using cracked versions of the OS that's downloaded from torrent sites. Even the best of AV/Malware protection won't find everything that may be hidden in those copies. There are genuine versions still available at least one safe site, Royal Discount.

Link Removed - Invalid URL





I still run Windows 2000 Professional using the suggestions that I typed above, and stay safe. Although IE will only update to 6, the latest versions of FF & Opera still installs on it. NOD32 & MBAM Pro keeps it safe also.

Going back to XP, even though Windows 7 has eclipsed it for home users, that less than 50% still means that there hundreds of millions of users are still using the OS. In January 2007, when XP usage was at an all time high with at 76% usage, there were at least 400 million users of the OS. So even cutting that in half (XP hasn't slid that far yet) would be 200 million active users of the OS.

Also, it's imperative to backup at least once a month, and continue to maintain the OS. XP will still do, especially for those who are unemployed or underemployed & can't afford a new computer that can run Windows 7. Many computers that runs XP, Windows 7 looks like garbage on, unless the user has added a decent video card that can support Aero graphics. There are many desktop systems that will allow for a video card, to make XP look even better, as well as a possible dual boot with Windows 7. Many of these cards costs less than $100, some for half that price (the 256 & 512MB ones). That's still better than my Windows 7 desktop equipped with built in ATI Radeon 3200 graphics @256MB.

I recently bought an older notebook just for the sole purpose of running my older Windows OS's (Windows 2000 Pro, XP Pro & my favorite, XP MCE. Also, XP 64 bit & XP MCE is installed on my desktop, with no slipstreaming of drivers. I simply enabled IDE emulation in the BIOS (on my HP desktop), and they turned out to be fine installs, on a 2009 model PC. The only thing that I had to do, and it was time for a fresh install anyway, was to reinstall Windows 7. Being that I have no RAID setup, there was no advantage for me to have it set to SATA. WEI still reports the HDD rating as 5.9, the highest attainable w/o a SSD.

That BIOS trick is still available on some computers, and allows for a smooth install of XP, as long as drivers can be found.

Anyway, XP users hang in there, there's still plenty of life left for the OS, provided you maintain it.

Best of Luck,
Cat
 
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The Toshiba my son bought me for xmas has Win 7 Home premium and I've learned to use it, set it up like I want it and now love it. But, I'm keeping my Lenovo netbook with XP on it because I have an old Kyocera 7135 smart phone and my Palm phone software for ebooks is only compatible with XP; not Win 7. There is no software provided from Kyocera to support my old phone, with the Palm OS, on Win 7. If I want to buy, download and install a Palm ebook on my Kyocera 7135 I still need a computer that has the XP OS on it. I'm 75, the 7135 does all I need it to do so changing phones is not an option. PS. My Lenovo with XP still has my WEP games I enjoy now and again.
 
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Lenovo (formerly IBM) computers are good ones. My ThinkPad T42 still runs very well, considering it's age, & I recently made a makeshift desktop out of it. The docking station that came with it made that possible. And Lenovo still supports it through it's manual updating software.

My next PC purchase will likely be a Lenovo one.

Cat
 
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