Hard drive slowing down?

[do0odo0o]

okay this is what i found out.

under Primary IDE Channel -

Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current TRansfer Mode: PIO Mode

under secondary IDE Channel -

Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Multi-Word DMA Mode 2


and i checked and my hard drive is using its own IDE cable. not sharing with anything else.

stuipid guessing question: does this mean i have to change my hard drive to slave or something and it'll work?

[Ice Czar]

well if the Primary Channel has the HDD thats slow, there is your answer, there is a massive difference in speed between DMA and PIO


PIO modes (http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/modesPIO-c.html)
DMA modes (http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/modes_DMA.htm)

what is attached to which channel?
(give channel & Device(s) and if its\they are master or slave)
device Model too (make, model number)


you may need to uninstall the drivers for the IDE ATA\ATAPI controllers
or update them, you might need to alter your physical config

ect

need some more info

[do0odo0o]

when i start my computer up this is what it says :

Primary Master: IDE hard disk
Primary Slave: not detected

Secondary master: my burner
Secondary Slave: dvd rom
(then just below that information it says this)

Primary Master: TX60A6AA IBM-DTLA-307045
Ultra DMA Mode-5, S.M.A.R.T. capable but disabled.

--------------------------------------------

Under my Primary IDE channel properties: Device 0 is my hard drive
device 1 is nothing.

Under Secondary IDE Channel Properties: Device 0 is my burner and Device 1 is my DVD rom.



did i miss anything???

[Ice Czar]

OK what motherboard do you have I'll check for new drivers

in the meantime, back in device manager
uninstall the Primary, Secondary and busmaster controllers
and reboot, they will be reloaded, see if that allows you to run in DMA

Im going to sleep right now, but will check this thread (if you reply) and find the latest chipset (bus mastering) drivers for you

If you dont know your mobo\chipset run
AIDA32 (http://www.aida32.hu/aida32.php#ggviewer-offsite-nav-12464704) (Freeware) and or Belarc Advisor (http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html) (also Freeware)

and download the IBM\Hitachi Drive Fitness Test (http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm) or burn the Ultimate Boot CD (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/) which has that as well and test the drive itself

[do0odo0o]

here my mother board the chipset

KT3 Ultra Series. by MSI
Via KT333 chipset based



and thanks so much for doing all this work for me.

[Ice Czar]

well thats easy :p


use the latest Hyperion 4 in 1 driver (http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=300)
all VIA chipsets use the same driver

your runing XP? or W2K? if so use the above
some people report that if they are using W98\ME that the Hyperion 4in1 v4.35 (http://downloads.viaarena.com/drivers/4in1/4in1435v.zip) works better

Installation Instructions (http://downloads.viaarena.com/installguides/HyperionDriverInstallationGuide.htm) (for either)

think I'll update my Browser Boxen a Abit KR7A (VIA KT266A) since Im here already :D

[do0odo0o]

maaaaaaaaaaaaaan

i did a quck install of those drivers.... and i still can't get out of PIO =(

[Ice Czar]

tell me about your cables
how many wires? 40 or 80
where did you get them?
how long are they?


do you have any other 80 wire cables?

[do0odo0o]

alright.

its an 80 wire cable
i think it came with my motherboard which i got like 1 1/2 years or something.
its about two feet long.

i tried my friends and it didn't fix anything.


-----------------------
just did this:

went into bios just to check things out, went that that normal bio's thing. anyways. my hard drive wasn't on 32 bit transfer mode. that was turned off. so i turned it on. but it didn't fix anything. ...... soooooooo just lettin ya know

[Ice Czar]

24" or is it 18"

have you run the Hitachi\IBM fitness test (http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm) on it as suggested by Philip?

[do0odo0o]

i just ran that fitness test..

it told me i had one or more bad sectors. and that i could either totally erase my drive to fix it. (which i didn't want to do).

or i could use the sector repair thing. it said that caused data loss and i didnt' want to do that either.

could that be whats causing this you think?
or is that just something totally different?

[Ice Czar]

well sectors do go bad
and enough of them could seriously interfer with the filesystem
might account for the PIO? not sure

do you have backup of this data yet?
Id make that your first priority
then run chkdsk /r

[do0odo0o]

what is chkdsk /r ????
i know how to run it, but what does it do?


and the ide is 18inches

[Ice Czar]

Originally posted by do0odo0o



and the ide is 18inches

figured, thats the "standard" longest length "allowed"

chkdsk (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/proddocs/chkdsk.asp)

"Creates and displays a status report for a disk based on the file system. Chkdsk also lists and corrects errors on the disk. Used without parameters, chkdsk displays the status of the disk in the current drive"


the /f parameter is
"Fixes errors on the disk. The disk must be locked. If chkdsk cannot lock the drive, a message appears that asks you if you want to check the drive the next time you restart the computer. "

its best to run it at startup

"Using chkdsk with open files
If you specify the /f command-line option, chkdsk sends an error message if there are open files on the disk. If you do not specify the /f command-line option and open files exist, chkdsk might report lost allocation units on the disk. This could happen if open files have not yet been recorded in the file allocation table. If chkdsk reports the loss of a large number of allocation units, consider repairing the disk.

Finding physical disk errors
Use the /r command-line option to find physical disk errors in the file system. For information about recovering physically damaged files with recover, see Related Topics"

before you run chkdsk, Id try to backup anything you havent already got elsewhere ;)

[do0odo0o]

to ice czar:

hey man, thanks for all the help. but i think i found out what was probably the problem.
on the back of the hard drive where the ide plugs in. one of the little needle pins is pushed down. into the HD. so it can't connect to the IDE. i think thats what the problem was.. maybe. hah

but anwyays, i just bought a new 120 gig maxtor, because i thought it was time to get a new hard drive anyways. (i was also having some problems with the HD getting power. some of the medal things wern't touching each other.. i'd have to like push them back on each other every once and a while.

anyways i got a 120 gig from best buy for 79.99 after two 30 dollar rebates. so i'm happy.

and again thanks for all the help you gave me.