Hard Drive Performance Problems

[mistoffeleez]

Hi,

ok my D drive (Quantum Fireball 24gb) has been working fine for 2 years. All of a sudden, the access speeds have just come to a near-halt. It now takes a good 5 to 10 minutes to copy a 5mb file from my D to C drive. Everything seems to be ok, it just takes forever. Navigating the drive seems to function normally, its just doing anything else...accessing files, copying + pasting, etc.

Windows 98, 2nd edition

IBM DJNA - primary master (c
quantum fireball - secondary master (d
pioneer dvd-rom - secondary slave (f

for the next 2 steps, have Ctrl+Alt+Del all applications but the essentials.

Tried running Defrag, but about 2 hours in I got an error message saying 'This Drive has been locked by Windows or another program'. So I have uninstalled all programs on the D drive, and it now just holds about 12gb worth of storage (mp3s, work, etc). So none of the files should be accessed unless I do it directly.

Tried running ScanDisk, but it is going so incredibly slow, it would take a week to get thru it.

No new hardware has been installed in at least a year. As far as software, only a whole bunch of games (which were all uninstalled!)...is the drive about to fail or what? Like I said, everything still works just takes forever...

Asking around, people have told me it could be: Drive failure, dma settings, or CMOS settings. I'm not too great with hardware issues, but have done some investigating.

I don't know anything about the DMA settings, but read they can only be used with Microsoft drivers, which I don't have any of. It could very well be this though, because when I do access files off the drive, it hangs up the whole computer while doing the processes. So when copying and pasting from D to C or trying to open a file off of D, the whole computer is unusable for the most part...which makes me think something with the memory access?

In CMOS, the Primary IDE Master and Secondary IDE Master are both showing up fine. I'm unsure as to whether or not the Secondary IDE Slave should be listed here, because it is a DVD-Rom drive and not a hdd. If it is supposed to be here, well it is not (it is set to AUTO), however, on the boot-up screen they are all there correctly, and Windows reports no conflicts on any of the drives or their bus controllers.

Not real sure what to do...don't have the money or time to get a new hard drive and transfer all the files. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Mitzi]

Right first two things you should try...

First step

Enable DMA for your drives - I don't know what you mean about them only working with Microsoft drivers - most modern hard drives support DMA. Now I don't have Windows 98 but I'll try remember how to do it....

Start->Settings->Control Panel->System->Device Manager->Disk Drives->Right click on your hard drive and tick the DMA box

If the above instructions are wrong, I'm sure someone can correct me.

Second step

Go to Start->Setting->Control Panel->System->Performance - you should see a message similar to 'Your computer is configured for optimal performance' - do you see it? If not let us know what you do see.

Third step

Run defrag - if you are having problems run defrag from safe mode. When you boot up, as soon as it says Starting Windows 98... press the F8 key and a menu should appear - select safe mode and Windows will load with its minimal configuration. After you have finished running defrag reboot your machine in normal mode.

Let us know how you get on.

 

[mistoffeleez]

Hey thanks for your reply.

Step 1 - I'll post a screencap of the Disk Drive properties so you can see that there is no DMA box at all...

General Screenshot

Settings Screenshot

Drivers Screenshot

Step 2 - It says 'Your computer is configured for optimal performance'

Step 3 - From Safe Mode, Defrag made it alot further...but still 'encountered an error' and did not finish. The windows error box also recommended I use ScanDisk, which I'll give a try again when I won't need my pc for a few days.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

What does the hard disk controller area in the device manager have listed in it? Also, have you tried putting the Fireball on the primary IDE controller by itself to see if it'll atleast run scandisk correctly and does the DVD run O.K. when in use? Have you tried a different IDE cable? Ofcourse the HDD could be faulty as you've been using it consistantly for 2+yrs and it may have some bad areas on it.

 

[Mitzi]

What does the hard disk controller area in the device manager have listed in it?

DAPUNISHER is right - try to look for the DMA option under the disk controllers branch of device manager - my memory is a little hazy when it comes to Win98.

Most drive manufacturers have low level drive test utilities which will tell you the status of your hard drives- I would suggest you download them for your drives. I know you can download the DFT (Drive Fitness Test) for your IBM drive from
here. Try having a look at Quantums website site for something similar for the Fireball drive.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.