Seagate 7200.8 300GB drives locks Windows XP when accessing?

[mcjimbo]

Hi guys,

My brother in law and i both got the Seagate 7200.8 300GB hard drive, however it locks Windows XP when accessing? It is the following model:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-148-067&depa=0

He is running an Athlon 1333mhz on a KG7 Raid board, and i'm running a Pentium 733mhz on an Intel Desktop board.

We are both running XP SP2, and I updated both of our BIOS's to the latest versions from the manufacturer website, and the drives now detect properly as 300GB and display in Windows. However sometimes when we access the drives, through explorer on My Computer you hear a clunking noise from the drive and it brings the whole system to a halt... and Windows becomes unresponsive? This seems to be an intermitent fault.

I know my brother in laws board supports up to ATA 100, not sure about my Intel ... probably only ATA 66... but this drive says its backward compatible with ATA 33 / 66 / 100 and 133. So whats the deal?

I also checked the drive controller, primary and secondary under "Advanced" and Transfer Mode is selected as "DMA iF available" on all drives.

Oh and we are also both running 300 and 350 watt power supplys, so I don't think that is the issue.

Thanks in advance

James

 

[meltdown75]

Hi mcjimbo

List the rest of your specs if you can... off the bat I can't recommend anything but shed some more light on your config and we can go from there. I will assume that you have updated everything possible from Microsoft (in terms of sp2 etc).

 

[mcjimbo]

Yeah, both systems are fully patched up and have latest BIOS updates. I've also installed Via Hyperion drivers on brother in laws AMD.

His specs are:

CPU: AMD Athlon 1333Mhz Socket A
MOBO: Abit KG7 Raid
HD Primary: WD 7200 RPM 40 GB
HD Secondary: Seagate 7200.8 300 GB
Video: GForce 5600 256MB
CDR: Plextor CDR
RAM: 512MD DDR 2700
PSU: Codegen 300 Watt

My current PC specs are (soon to be retired, can you tell which components ill use on my new A64? 🙂 ):
CPU: Intel Pentium 3 733 (Socket A type)
MOBO: Intel P3 Deskop Motherboad
Primary HD: Quantum Fireball 5400 RPM 12 GB
HD Secondary: Seagate 7200.8 300 GB
Video: AGP Matrox G450 Dual Head 32 MB
CD: Acer 6x CD-R\32x Read
DVD-R: NEC 3520A DVD Burner
PSU: Maddog 350 Watt

Hope these specs help in nailing this thing down?

James

 

[meltdown75]

Hmm. I've never had 2 drives linked up in that configuration before (yours). I would normally put my OS on the faster of the two, and also I always prefer to use the faster / better of the two drives as my primary. This is simply preference and I have no idea if it affects overall performance although I can guess that faster drive = faster response time from the OS & apps. You *may* want to consider that although I'm sure (I hope) you will be using the Seagate as your primary HD in your new build. I see no reason to keep the 12 gigger around, even now.

Can't say I've heard of any of the PSU manufacturers... 350W is fine but you want a good 350W PSU. ie. I'd take a 300W PC Power & Cooling over a 500W "Diablo" or something like that. Quality is everything when it comes to PSUs...

Also what type of RAM are you using in your setup?

 

[imported_Phil]

Clunking noises from hard disks are the first signs of imminent failure.