Having trouble with Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA

[wapapaw]

Okay so here goes. I'm using an Athlon 64 3000+ on a K8T Neo-FIS2R from MSI and I hooked up a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA drive to the Promise SATA controller.

It detects fine and everything is dandy but when I try to install Windows XP the access to the drive is extremely slow! It takes 15 minutes before Windows Setup starts (after installing the SATA drivers). I have two K8T Neos at my disposal and the problem is consistent with both. Since I can't install Windows due to the extreme slowdown, I elected to plug the PATA drive that I was using before, booted into Windows XP and then installed the SATA driver. Afterwards I plug in the drive. Windows fails to boot past the splash screen! Either it hangs or takes an eternity to boot.

Is my Barracuda dead? It's detected and all... By the way I spent the whole afternoon trying to fix it and even tried using both SATA ports on the Promise controller and both SATA ports on the VIA controller. No dice.

Now if only I had a second Barracuda drive here... anyway what do you guys think I should try next?

 

[SUOrangeman]

Take a look at the system log (My Computer -> right-click -> Manage -> Event Viewer) and see if there are a lot of UlSata timeouts. When I got my 'cuda a few weeks ago, I kept hearing it spin down and spin up constantly. Even though I'm not using the 'cuda as my system drive, it brought everything to a halt.

I inadventently found out that the Molex connector that I ultimately fed to the 'cuda was bad. Once connected to a good power connector, my Promise and my 7200.7 have been very happy ever since.

-SUO