HDD Transfer Rate causing slow PC?

UPSer

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I have 2 HD's. One 60GB Maxtor 5.4k and one 120GB 5.4k that came with HP a330n. Transfer rate on the 60 gig is about 32MB/s and the 120 gig is 3MB/s ... All programs and OS are on the 120GB .. Media/Backup is on the 60GB .. When I use disk doc. I can see it checking the sectors on teh 120 and it bounces all over the place, but on the 60GB everything is done in order and ALOT quicker and not because of the size.. Anyone have an idea on what could be causing this?
 

Kari

Splendid
Yeah theres something wrong with it. Try defragmenting it for starters.
If the hdd supports SMART then use speedfan or something to read the SMART status.
Make sure the ide(?) cable is plugged all the way in, I once had with my old ide hdd the cable poorly plugged in and it slowed it way down
 

SomeJoe7777

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3MB/sec transfers indicates that the hard drive is stuck in PIO mode.

Follow directions at the bottom of this page to attempt to restore the hard drive to DMA mode.

If that doesn't work, post back, there is another undocumented procedure.
 

UPSer

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Out of all the attributes, I have 6 with an OK. and the others dont have anything. Will check the cable in a bit.



It is indeed in PIO Mode, and will not change to DMA.

 
There is a script out there that can reset your DMA(WIN XP)

http://winhlp.com/tools/resetdma.vbs

Save it and run it, reboot and see if its in DMA.....but it falling to PIO could mean the drive is going bad, or more commonly the cable is defective. Windows will put drives in PIO if it has trouble and errors writing and reading from them....

The code for the VBS. so you can see it

Code:
' Visual Basic Script program to reset the DMA status of all ATA drives

' Copyright © 2006 Hans-Georg Michna

' Version 2007-04-04

' Works in Windows XP, probably also in Windows 2000 and NT.
' Does no harm if Windows version is incompatible.

If MsgBox("This program will now reset the DMA status of all ATA drives with Windows drivers." _
  & vbNewline & "Windows will redetect the status after the next reboot, therefore this procedure" _
  & vbNewline & "should be harmless.", _
    vbOkCancel, "Program start message") _
  = vbOk Then

RegPath = "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\"
ValueName1Master = "MasterIdDataChecksum"
ValueName1Slave = "SlaveIdDataChecksum"
ValueName2Master = "UserMasterDeviceTimingModeAllowed"
ValueName2Slave = "UserSlaveDeviceTimingModeAllowed"
ValueName3 = "ResetErrorCountersOnSuccess"
MessageText = "The following ATA channels have been reset:"
MessageTextLen0 = Len(MessageText)
ConsecutiveMisses = 0
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

For i = 0 to 999
  RegSubPath = Right("000" & i, 4) & "\"

  ' Master

  Err.Clear
  On Error Resume Next
  WshShell.RegRead RegPath & RegSubPath & ValueName1Master
  errMaster = Err.Number
  On Error Goto 0
  If errMaster = 0 Then
    On Error Resume Next
    WshShell.RegDelete RegPath & RegSubPath & ValueName1Master
    WshShell.RegDelete RegPath & RegSubPath & ValueName2Master
    On Error Goto 0
    MessageText = MessageText & vbNewLine & "Master"
  End If

  ' Slave

  Err.Clear
  On Error Resume Next
  WshShell.RegRead RegPath & RegSubPath & ValueName1Slave
  errSlave = Err.Number
  On Error Goto 0
  If errSlave = 0 Then
    On Error Resume Next
    WshShell.RegDelete RegPath & RegSubPath & ValueName1Slave
    WshShell.RegDelete RegPath & RegSubPath & ValueName2Slave
    On Error Goto 0
    If errMaster = 0 Then
      MessageText = MessageText & " and "
    Else
      MessageText = MessageText & vbNewLine
    End If
    MessageText = MessageText & "Slave"
  End If

  If errMaster = 0 Or errSlave = 0 Then
    On Error Resume Next
    WshShell.RegWrite RegPath & RegSubPath & ValueName3, 1, "REG_DWORD"
    On Error Goto 0
    ChannelName = "unnamed channel " & Left(RegSubPath, 4)
    On Error Resume Next
    ChannelName = WshShell.RegRead(RegPath & RegSubPath & "DriverDesc")
    On Error Goto 0
    MessageText = MessageText & " of " & ChannelName & ";"
    ConsecutiveMisses = 0
  Else
    ConsecutiveMisses = ConsecutiveMisses + 1
    If ConsecutiveMisses >= 32 Then Exit For ' Don't search unnecessarily long.
  End If
Next ' i

If Len(MessageText) <= MessageTextLen0 Then
  MessageText = "No resettable ATA channels with Windows drivers found. Nothing changed."
Else
  MessageText = MessageText & vbNewline _
    & "Please reboot now to reset and redetect the DMA status."
End If

MsgBox MessageText, vbOkOnly, "Program finished normally"

End If ' MsgBox(...) = vbOk

' End of Visual Basic Script program
 

SomeJoe7777

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Perform the following procedure:

1. Update Windows XP to SP2 if you haven't done so already.
2. Make SURE the IDE cable you're using is an 80-conductor cable (blue connector for motherboard, black and gray connectors for devices), and is NO MORE than 18" long. If your cable doesn't look like this, trash it and get a correct cable.
3. Go into Computer Management, and click on Device Manager.
4. Expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers node.
5. Double-click on the IDE controller that contains the hard drive that is stuck in PIO mode.
6. Go to the Driver tab, and click Uninstall to remove this IDE controller.
7. Restart the computer. Windows XP will reinstall the IDE controller during the restart.
8. After the restart, go back into Device Manager and verify that the IDE controller is reinstalled.
9. Run regedit, locate the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0001

You may see more than one key under this node, you will have one for each IDE controller. For example, there might be:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0002
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0003

etc.

10. Inside each of the 0001, 0002, 0003, etc. keys, do the following:

Create a new DWORD value named "ResetErrorCountersOnSuccess". Set the value to 1.

11. Restart the computer.
12. Go back into device manager, make sure the offending hard drive is now in DMA mode.


The .vbs program that nukemaster posted essentially does the same thing.
 
G

Guest

Guest
hiya, first post...

**HDD SLOW TRANSFER RATES OR SLUGGISH PC ISSUE**


THE PROBLEM OF SLOW HDD TRANSFER RATE CAME TO ME AFTER CONNECTING A SECONDARY 2.5" LAPTOP SATA HDD TO MY PC WHILST PC SWITCHED ON AND DISCONNECTING IT WHILST PC WAS SWITCHED ON (YOUR NOT MEANT TO!)

I HAVE COME UP WITH THE FOLLOWING CHECKLIST...

1-CHECK DEVICE MANAGER FOR ANY ERRORS (YELLOW /!\ )
2-CHECK WRITE CACHING ENABLED ON DISK
3-CHECK VIRTUAL MEMORY ENABLED!!! (PAGING FILE)
4-UNINSTALL STORAGE CONTROLLERS (BOTH) IN DEVICE MANAGER ("[+]IDE ATA/ATAPI CONTROLLERS" > FIRST TWO) THEN RESTART, SHOULD AUTO. REINSTALL THEM.
5-REINSTALL STORAGE CONTROLLER DRIVER FROM MOBO DISC A.K.A CHIPSET DRIVERS THEN RESTART, IF NOT FIXED REPEAT NO4
6-USE "HD TUNE" TO CHECK HDD HEALTH

7-*REMEMBER THAT HARDWARE HAS 0.34% FAILURE ANNUALLY AND SOFTWARE HAS 99% FAILURE!!!

IF ANYONE HAS ANYTHING TO ADD TO THE LIST PLEASE DO SO NEATLY AND REMEMBER IT IS ABOUT SLOW HDD TRANSFER RATES AS REPORTED BY HD TUNE E.G. 3mb/s WHEN IT SHOULD BE 120mb/s (I GET ON MY 1000GB 32MB CACHE DRIVE(£70))

FORGOT TO SAY, STEP 4 WAS THE WINNER FOR ME LIKE THE PREVIOUS GUY BUT I TRIED 1,2,3 FIRST!!!

THANKS

20 /M /UK /LONDON

IT TECH WORKING IN SCHOOL
BSC COMPUTER SCIENCE
JAVA PROGRAMMING
HTML / CSS WEB DESIGN
 

tarun_tkg

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Hi, I also have the similar problem, I guess my HDD speed is very slow, when ever I transfer data from one partition to another or int he same partition Vista shows the data speed to be near 2Mb/s. Which I guess is very slow.

I have a SCSI HDD of 250 GB on my laptop with Vista installed. I checked in the Resource Monitor, the disk section lists PID, so I guess I also have a PID mode running.

Please suggest what to do, till now I haven't done any of the steps mentioned above as the script says it's for XP and was written in 2007.

Thanks n Regards
Tarun