Help!! New Hard Drive's in, but seems slooowww

[maximus01can]

Searched through the archives a bit, but couldn't find any exact answers so here's the goods.


Dell Dimension 4400
P4 1.8GHz
256DDR
MOBO??? Can't Remember
Primary IDE Master (Western Digital 40G)
Primary IDE Slave (Seagate 120G)

Secondary Master (CD rom)
Secondary Slave (Sony DRU510A DVD Burner)

Problem,

Purchased a new Seagate 120G HD and hooked it up as Slave on Primary IDE. Dell Service Tech came (I thought I had a HD problem but Didn't Really ) so they brought a new one and ghosted all operating/Data from old Seagate 20G HD onto New Western Digital 40G HD. So new 40G Western Digital is Master and New Seagate 120G is slave for storage purposes only. Problem is that it's slower now than it was with just the old 20G HD running the show...... I've went into MSConfig and disabled everything on startup with the exception of Norton Antivirus/Internet protection and startup is fine, just accessing outlook, internet and starting programs seems to be alot slower than before???? Any Hints would be appreciated.

Thanks Much,
Max

[AzKidd69]

try a defrag??

[Bovon]

Give us a rundown of your system...OS, RAM etc.

A Western Digital HDD has two different jumpering setups...one if it is the master and no slave, and a different jumpering setup if it is a master with a slave connected.. check that out and advise.

Try running the system without the slave connected (be sure to change the jumpers) Try putting the 20 gig back in and retest the boot time. Try getting us something in 'real time' to work with. There are entirely too many differences between hard drives and system setups, OS's etc. to try to help or advise you without some particulars.

[jmichna]

Look in Start... Settings... Control Panel... System... Device Manager... Device Settings... IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller, and ensure that your primary IDE controller is using transfer mode (Ultra)DMA 4 or 5, and NOT PIO (somtimes referred to as "DOS" Compatability Mode"). If so, there may be an issue with drive recognition in BIOS, leading to improper drive identification in Windows.

[jmichna]

Example attached.

[pinoy87]

When using your system with the 40gig on master and 120gig on slave, are you saying its slow all the time or when your accessing your 120gig?

When two hard drives are hooked up onto one system, accessing the slave hard drive is slow.

[electric]

quote Primary IDE Master (Western Digital 40G)
Primary IDE Slave (Seagate 120G)

Secondary Master (CD rom)
Secondary Slave (Sony DRU510A unquote


rearange

Primary IDE Master (Western Digital 40G)
Primaryslave(CD rom)

Secondary Master (Seagate 120G)
Secondary Slave (Sony DRU510A

[jmichna]

Originally posted by electric
quote Primary IDE Master (Western Digital 40G)
Primary IDE Slave (Seagate 120G)

Secondary Master (CD rom)
Secondary Slave (Sony DRU510A unquote


rearange

Primary IDE Master (Western Digital 40G)
Primaryslave(CD rom)

Secondary Master (Seagate 120G)
Secondary Slave (Sony DRU510A

electric...
That's a good call too, however, there's been some controversy/confusion regarding the performance hit when you put two devices of differing transfer rate capacilites (e.g. ATA-33 vs ATA133) on a single controller. Some folks claim that both devices will then run at the transfer rate of the slower device.

I don't know if that is still true for newer mobos/controllers, but it was true at one point in time.

Having said all this, if "maximus01can" confirms that his IDE controllers are running in UDMA mode, then I think you suggestion is definitely worth a try.

[maximus01can]

Okay here's the skinny extra data

OS=Windows XP
Ram is as forementioned 256 DDR
Western Digital is jumpered as Master with slave
Seagate is set up as Slave (No jumpers installed)
Still have to check on The Ultra DMA Setting although I think it is.

The installation guide for the Seagate recommended setup to be both HD's on the Primary IDE.......Don't know for sure why, but that was their recommendation.

I defraged last night and the speed improved to the point where I think it's the same as it was before. I guess even though it's a new drive it needed a defrag. I'm still interested in what Electric had to say about splitting the HD's as masters to the optical devices............do you think that this is still worth pursuing?

Thanks for the help All.
Max

[Target]

Glad to hear that defrag helped.

I'd stick with Electric's advice and check the UDMA mode to see what its setup as.

Personally I think splitting the hard disks as Masters to the Optical drives is probably going to cause some slowness and I wouldn't bother.

Also, you didn't mention the speed of the newer drives. Are they 5400 RPM or 7200 RPM? Those size drives have been known to come at different speeds over time, and its possible that you may have gotten a 5400 RPM drive as a replacement, which would seem a little less snappy if you were used to a 7200 RPM drive.