Hard Disk Trouble

[scotyard]

hi,

i have a system with 320gb sata hdd and win xp installed. the 320gb hdd has 2 partitions 18gb and 282gb. xp is installed in 18gb partition.

my another hdd 160gb hdd went kaput so i replaced it. now, when i added the new hdd, bios recognized it but xp did not. so, i formatted it using windows xp(booted using the win xp cd and formated the hdd). but now the pc runs very slowly. it hangs often.

how do i install the new hdd properly.

also, win xp shows a yellow exclamation mark on the pci simple communications controller in the device manager. it asks for a driver. i reinstalled my mobo drivers but to no avail.

any help is appreciated.

thanks!!!!!!!!!!

P.S.- 320gb hdd is 2 months old while 160gb is one day old.

 

[mindless1]

First, define "hang".

Check Event Viewer, does it report anything?

Since you had recently had a HDD failure, I would wonder about cooling and power, if one of these two factors had lead to the demise of the old drive and now are doing it again.

You don't mention which interface this new drive uses but with any, cabling is a potential weakness and with SATA, also the mechanical connector at both the HDD and motherboard end.

Also run the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics, and use your preferred software to check Smart values.

If you've a multimeter, check the 3.3V, 5V and 12V voltage levels. If no meter, at least seem if the bios and/or software voltage reports look reasonable (may tend to report a certain % lower than actual values, keep that in mind).

Just for the heck of it, unplug the drive and use the system without it for awhile if none of the above helps, stranger things have happened than to have an additional problem either related (like bad power or disturbing some part in the PC while swapping the hard drives) or some other unrelated fault. While some things are unlikely if we discount all the unlikely things then a lot of people would never find the problem.

As for the pci simple communications controller it is probably unrelated. Try going into device manager, clicking on it to see if it reports a vendor and device ID # (VEN_%%%%_&_DEV_%%% type of values) then Google for those or head over to http://www.pcidatabase.com/
A random guess would be that it's something like a modem but you didn't even mention your motherboard make/model nor installed parts so...

Also, welcome to Anandtech!

 

[humanure]

format the new drive from within windows using disk management, start-computer-right click-manage-disk management. do you have a modem installed, that may be the missing driver.

 

[scotyard]

@mindless1 and humanure thanks for the reply............


i was being an a**. oh alright mindless1 and humanure yes both of you are right. thats my modem without the drivers. totally forgot that. thanks for this.


by 'hang', i mean that the computer stops responding for some time as if it is concentrating only on one job at hand(over here.....tending to the new 160gb hdd). no the event viewer doesn't list ant event corresponding to that.

my earlier hdd may be history due to cooling cause my pc is ON almost 24 hrs a day(but that is another story altogether). i will try formating it using disk management services later. also i will try n remove my working hdd and install the os on my new hdd and try to boot off it to see if it works.

thanks!

 

[scotyard]

also my new hdd is also seagate SATA 160gb.