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Odd problem with PCI SATA/PATA card and/or XP pro

E

Entropism

Senior member

I've never used a PCI card to hook up my drives before, so excuse me if I revert to a noob for a while. I currently have 4 hard drives on my computer, along with 2 burners (NEC3500 for burning, Lite-On 1653 for ripping, reading, error scanning). I have 2 sata drives attached to my intel board, the burners each getting their own channel on the board, and the card gets one SATA and one IDE drive. Sounds reasonable, no?

By the way, this is on XP Pro, SP2, with a reasonably fresh install (reformatted last month).

Here's where the problem comes in: The Maxtor PATA drive on the promise card takes forever to access. I'll open "my computer", click on the Maxtor to open it, and it'll either pause for 10 seconds or so and continue as normal, or explorer will crash trying to open the drive. I'll get the typical "not responding" message, explorer crashes, and comes back up again. USUALLY, I can access the drive correctly after that. I can't replicate the problem exactly, it's almost as random as a coin flip. 50% it wont access, 50% it will. Anyone have any experience with this? OH, and my IDE cables from the burners won't reach the hard drive, or I'd hook it up as a slave to my Lite-On. It's a crowded case. I'm also hesitant to put my Lite-On on the Promise card and the hard drive on the MB, because I know the burner doesn't work well in that situation.
 
Is the Maxtor jumpered as Master? What Intel mobo precisely, and what slot is the PCI card in?
 
It's the D875PBZ, the maxtor is set at master, and it's the 2nd PCI slot from the AGP slot. I skipped the 1st slot of course. All the other PCI slots are filled besides the first. (wireless network, USB/firewire, SB Audigy2 not in that order)
 
I'll have to get the manual downloaded and scope out the PCI-slot IRQ-sharing table. Might be back with you on that tomorrow morning 🙂
 
Thanks a bunch. I pretty much ruled out the IRQ problem because the SATA drive attached works fine. But if it's that easy, all the better.
 
I don't have time to get the manual from home here (56k 🙁) but could you try this as a fact-finding step: take out all the PCI cards except the hard-drive controller, and see if the behavior changes. Maybe I'll have a minute at lunch to scrutinize the IRQ layout.
 
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