If you’re using hard drive with Advanced Format technology make sure volumes alignment is right, not that wrong volume alignment can damage your Computer) but they must be aligned correctly for better performance of Advanced Format disk, Disk Alignment Test is freeware portable app checks AF-disks for volume alignment and gives advice for the optimization incase if required.
How wrong Alignment can happen?
There may be chance in Windows 7 for the wrong alignment of volumes if AF-disk was partitioned with outdated software or the system is upgraded from Windows XP. There is no need to align the volumes only when the logical sector size coincides with physical one of all your disks
Using Disk Alignment Test
Download and run the program from your Computer, if no Advanced Format disks detected in your Computer program says the same. DAT offers graphical and text user interface, you can switch between the two from the program window.
If wrong alignment is found you can use free align tools offered by hard drive manufacturers like Western Digital, Hitachi, Samsung and Toshiba. You can then re-partition your disk in Windows Vista and Windows 7.
Disk Alignment Test works on Windows XP/Vista/7.