HELP: Western Digital 200GB running at 3.1 MB/sec

[RandysWay]

My Western Digital 200GB "Caviar" HDD (IDE) is running pathetically slow. I've ran CHKDSK and it found no errors. When I attempt to Defragment the drive, no matter what program I use (including O&O Defrag 8.6) takes at least 30 minutes to Analyze 50% of the drive.

I ran HD Tune and the Benchmark clocked it at a very steady 3.1 MB/sec - almost as if something is keeping it exactly at that speed. Check out how straight the graph is below. I benchmarked my 74GB WD Raptor and my 320GB WD SE16, and both benchmarked at around 65-70 MB/sec.

Here are a few pictures:

http://img221.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hdtune1vu3.jpg http://img412.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hdtune2yl5.jpg
http://img242.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hdtune3ig7.jpg http://img221.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hdtune4ep0.jpg


Does anybody have any ideas? Hopefully it is a simple fix.

Thank you,
-R

 

[mechBgon]

1) open Device Manager

2) expand the IDE/ATAPI controllers listing, then double-click each controller listed under that branch, hit its Advanced tab, and make sure they're using a DMA mode, not PIO.

3) if you find one that's using PIO mode, right-click that controller and do an Uninstall. After checking them all, reboot the computer and let Windows re-detect the controllers afresh. This sort of "resets its circuit breaker."

4) if the problem happens again, try a new, 18-inch 80-wire boring flat non-rounded non-glow-in-the-dark ATA cable and go through steps 1-3 again.

 

[RandysWay]

Before I made the thread, I checked and made sure that the controllers were using a DMA mode and not PIO. I'll go ahead and check the cable then replace it with a spare.. I'll reply back in a bit with my results. Thank you for the reply, mechBgon.

-R

 

[mechBgon]

sure thing Next thing you might try, if the cable doesn't help, is to put that drive into a different computer as a second drive and run the test again, just to see if it's definitely the drive itself.

 

[RandysWay]

I just replaced the cable with a brand spankin' new one and the same problem persists. Any other ideas? I'd hate to move the drive into another PC to test.. total pain in the butt.

Thanks,

-R

 

[mechBgon]

You might try the Western Digital diagnostics on it, if you haven't done that already: http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp

Also: what motherboard is it on? Some have IDE ports connected to tacked-on PCI-based controllers that could (long shot) be having an IRQ clash with other PCI-based stuff, such as a sound card or something.

 

[RandysWay]

I'm running the WD Diagnostics Application on the drive with the "Extended Test" running.. Only 23.5 hours remaining.

I just realized I didn't list my PC specs;

P4 3.0C @ 3.3GHz
ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe
2 GB Corsair TwinX XMS PC-3200C2PT
Creative Audigy 2 ZS
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

WD Raptor 74 GB SATA (NTFS)
WD Caviar 200 GB IDE (FAT32) <- Drive that I am having problems with.
WD SE16 320 GB SATA (NTFS)


Thanks,
-R


Edit: I tried a long shot and I fully uninstalled the IDE controllers and let XP reinstall them, but still have the same problem. The only thing I have noticed thus far, which I have no idea if it makes a difference, is that HD Tune reports on the drive in question:

Supported: UDMA Mode 5 (Ultra ATA/100)
Active: UDMA Mode 6 (Ultra ATA/133)

Could this be anything?

 

[RandysWay]

Bingo! Fixed it. I went into the BIOS and noticed that the WD2000JB wasn't listed under any of the IDE controllers. I opened the guts back up and saw that there was a jumper on the drive set to slave. I removed the jumper and the drive magically showed up in the BIOS; the HD Tune Benchmark now shows an average of 38.3 MB/sec with a Burst Rate of 67.0 MB/sec. Also, The drive is now running in UDMA Mode 5 (not UDMA Mode 6, as before.)

Thank you to all who replied for the help and ideas.. I'm glad the drive hasn't gone bad -- I've never had one WD drive that failed me.. (Knock on wood!)

-R