I have been running a PC with Windows XP pro quite successfully now for quite some time with a single HDD. I recently purchased a Western Digital 160GB IDE drive because my primary drive was quickly running out of space.

I installed the drive on the secondary IDE controller, jumpered for a single drive, and attached to the proper (furthest) end of the IDE cable (80 wire, 40 pin). Everything hooks up as it should.

The drive is partitioned into two areas, both approx. 80GB each.

Windows detects the drive fine, and writes to it fine most of the time (see later in this post), but performance on the drive is UNBEARABLY slow. Drive is (apparently) running DMA mode 5 (which is compatable w/ the drive) and I've been trying to determine if the BIOS on the motherboard supports DMA 5, but the only option that even mentions DMA in the bios has two options: 'Auto' or 'Disabled' . I've tried to use the second drive on a PCI ATA100 IDE controller card, with *WORSE* results, as the drive runs even slower!!

I'm (trying to) transfer some large files from the existing drive to the new drive, with limited success. Whenever I choose a large group of files to transfer, it goes for a while, then i get a 'Delayed write failed' error message. A little research turns up articles from the HDD manufacturer and Microsoft that I should disable write cache on the disk, which i've done. Obviously this makes the performance even WORSE yet! Seek times on the drive are horrendously slow, I get that delayed write error all the time, and I'm about two more failed writes away from throwing the thing out the window! Why have a large capacity drive if it's going to be this mind-numbingly slow??!

Any insight would be greatly appreciated, system specs follow signature.

-Jon-

DFI Motherboard, model AD70
AMD XP 2000 processor
512MB of PC266 DDR ram
Primary drive: Western Digital 40GB IDE, FAT32 file system, single partition
Secondary (problem) drive: Western Digital 160GB IDE, NTFS file system, 2 partitions of 80GB each
Operating sytem: Windows XP Pro with all available updates and service packs

Frustration level [Low]---------------*---[High] >_<

I presume that this drive is one of those Western Digitals with the 8Mb cache and 7200rpm spin rate? They've had excellent reviews. I would seriously wonder whether the drive is faulty and needs replacing under warranty.

Only other thing that I can think of is the sector size. It used to be the case that larger hard disks ended up with less efficient, larger sectors when they were formatted. But I'm not sure how XP handles this with NTFS.

Originally Posted by DJNafey

I presume that this drive is one of those Western Digitals with the 8Mb cache and 7200rpm spin rate?

Yep, that's the one.

Originally Posted by DJNafey

They've had excellent reviews. I would seriously wonder whether the drive is faulty and needs replacing under warranty.

How would I tell, apart from shipping the drive to them? Know of any good diagnostic programs?

Originally Posted by DJNafey

Only other thing that I can think of is the sector size. It used to be the case that larger hard disks ended up with less efficient, larger sectors when they were formatted. But I'm not sure how XP handles this with NTFS.

Hmm ... perhaps it's better to partition the drive into say, 4 40GB partitions? I've never had a problem with any smaller drive, this is my first really 'large' HDD i've owned. 40 and 80 gig drives have never given me a problem. Maybe i'll just put a RAID 0 setup in it and call it a day I'd love to get this drive working, as it cost me about $100.00. Stupid me broke a pin on the secondary IDE controller while messing around with cables and settings, so i'm getting an ASUS board to replace it with. Perhaps that will have better luck.

In the meantime, I guess i'll transfer the files I need off that drive and erase/repartition it to see if that helps. Someone was telling me to be sure and use the /MBR switch with FDISK, any idea what the heck that is? Master Boot Record maybe? Thanks for your help so far

-Jon-

Originally Posted by Geblah187

How would I tell, apart from shipping the drive to them? Know of any good diagnostic programs?

I bet Western Digital's diagnostics program would be appropriate! Download it from their web site by clicking on this link to the EXE file (and choose the 'Save to disk' option if prompted):

http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/DlgDiagv504c.exe

Originally Posted by Geblah187

Hmm ... perhaps it's better to partition the drive into say, 4 40GB partitions?

Yes, that's what I thinking ..... if it is a problem related to cluster size. I'm not too sure whether it could be though.

Originally Posted by Geblah187

Someone was telling me to be sure and use the /MBR switch with FDISK, any idea what the heck that is? Master Boot Record maybe?

Yes, that's exactly right. The /MBR switch is something to do with resetting the Master Boot Record. Unfortunately, my Windows 2000 won't let me run FDISK to find out exactly what Microsoft say it does. However, if you can run FDISK on your PC, then type FDISK /? and that will explain all the options