I bought a SATA 500 GB HD 2 months ago, worked great then this week it just suddenly started reading and writing very very slow. I did Chkdsk and it came up clean, ran my spyware and registry cleaner, all clean there, Antivirus showed nothing (using McAffee) Not sure what else to check, did download Seatools from seagate since its a seagate drive. Not sure what is wrong. Anyone have any ideas? If you prefer live chat I can be reached on Yahoo or AIM as dgarrison666

Thank you,
Dan Garrison
djgarrison@comcast.net

Check in Device Manager> IDE ATA/ ATAPI controllers> Serial controllers> Primary channel. All boxes should be ticked. What does it say there about your drive. Run the speed test.

Ok, when I go into the IDE ATA / ATAPI Controllers, there is no Serial Controllers selection. I have the following:
ATI IDE Controller
Primary IDE Channel
Primary IDE Channel
Secondary IDE Channel
Secondary IDE Channel
and then Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller.

Am I missing something?

Try expanding one of the primary channels.

I just thought of another possible cause. Go Device Manager> expand disk drives. Right click the drive in question. Choose properties> policies> tick the bullet for opimize for performance.

This will show the drive as a removable drive in the tray by the clock. Don't be concerned that is normal. Simply ignore that.

If that isn't the issue then go back the the controller section. You have double listings for primary and secondary channels. On of each should be SATA.

hmm ok, I checked the disk drive area, the optimize for perfomance is already checked but no icon in the tray is there. Is that cause for concern? There is also a checkbox that is checked for the enabling of caching on the drive. Now back to the controllers, there is no + marks to expand them and I don't see any boxes for primary channels in the boxes when I look at it in the properties. Sorry to be a pain, your help is very very much welcome. Any more ideas?

-Dan

Right click on each primary channel, one at a time and choose properties. Post the headings on each tab. Repeat for each one.

For both Primary IDE Channels the following tabs are there when I look at the properties:

General, Advanced Settings, Driver, Detail.

Under Advanced Settings:
Device 0
Device type = Auto Detection
Transfer Mode: DMA if Available
Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA Mode 6

Device 1
Device type = Auto Detection
Transfer Mode: DMA if Available
Current Transfer Mode: Not Applicable.

Details tab:
Primart IDE Channel
Device Instance ID is selected in the drop down box, and in the box below there is
"PCIIDE\IDECHANNEL\4&2ww00b06&0&0"

For the 2nd Primary IDE Channel the only things different are:
On the Advanced settings tab:
DEVICE 1
THE current transfer mode is set to Ultra DMA Mode 5.
There is also a Resources tab on this Primary IDE Channel Properties. Not on the other.

How many harddrives do you have? Did you install the MBoard chipset drivers?

Is the 500GB drive identified by model in the startup screens?

Does the CD you installed WinXP with have at least SP1 integrated into the CD?

I have 3 HD's
1 IDE, 2 SATA.
yes the 500 gb drive and the others are all identified as their models in the bootup screens.

I bought the computer from a guy who builds computers for a living. I am assuming he did install the chipset drivers.

The CD I don't have XP was installed, but I beleive he did tell me that he installed XP with Service pack 1 then upgraded the system via windows updates to SP2.

Why would it work fine for 2 months almost then all of the sudden slow down? I doubt you'll have that answer just wondering aloud...

Well first off it is your business about not having any media but evedually you will need a CD. I wouldn't assume the chipset drivers are installed.

Right click on My Computer> properties> general. The service park currently installed will show there.

Going back to the original post. What makes you think the 500GB is running slower than before? What are you using it for? How is it formatted?

Well I have all the motherboard cd's. He gave them to me, so if I need them I have them, yes I know not having the Windows XP CD is an issue, he's supposed to be getting it to me when my other 2 gig of Ram arrive.
Now, It says Service Pack two is installed.
The 500 gb is primarily being used as a download drive, its about 1/2 full. Now, It used to run very very fast, the rar files I recombine now take at least twice as long and even just trying to listen to an mp3 takes at least 2 minutes where as before this week it took seconds. the other hard drives I have both are running perfectly fine, fast reads and writes from them. Thats why I think the drive is running slow. The drive is formatted for NTFS.

Thanks again for being patient and helping out.
-Dan

Did you try running the Seagate utilities? Also, probably wouldn't hurt to try reseating the SATA data cable.

Have you checked the fragmentation level ? It's possible that you need to defragment the drive.

Well, I just shutdown and opened up the computer, and low and behold the power cable slipped right out of the hard drive. I think it was that. I did check the fragmentation level, it was not in need of a defrag, I thought the same thing.

it seems to be running must faster now. I checked the power and sata cable before, but it must have been loose.

Sorry to waste your time, it seems to be good to go for the moment..

Glad to help.