Sudden hard drive slow transfer rate

[abradar]

Hope I'm at the right place! Here's the deal. For several months I've been weekly cloning my hard drive to a secondary hdd using Casper XP. The average transfer rate has been 1500+MB's/minute. Suddenly it's only slightly above 300MB's/min. Nothing on the system has been changed, no new hardware, no dinking around. Only software installed lately is switching from AVG to Avast! antivirus (both free editions). Virus scanned, spyware scanned, etc. - all clean. Any ideas appreciated. TIA,

Michelle

 

[edumacated81]

what kind of hard drives are you using? SATA, SCSI, IDE? that would help a lil bit

 

[LTC8K6]

See if one of the drives was dropped into PIO mode. Windows XP will do this if it detects errors.

 

[abradar]

Sorry. They're IDE. What is PIO and how would I check this out?

 

[LTC8K6]

Check the controller properties in device manager. In PIO mode, the CPU has to handle disk drive data transfers. This slows your whole system down.

 

[Harvey]

Are you using a mobile rack (plug in rack and tray)? I had the same problem with Norton Ghost on my two Maxtor 80 GB drives. To test the setup, I removed the backup drive from the tray and connected it directly to the IDE cable, and the transfer rate returned to normal.

It may be dirty contacts. If so, you may be able to use some contact cleaner on both the tray and the rack connectors to restore performance. My tray has a crack and eventually needs replacement so I actualy used WD-40 on a Q-Tip. That worked as a short term fix, but I don't recommend that as a permanent fix because I can't vouch for the long term effects of WD-40 on the contacts or the plastic.

 

[abradar]

Checked controller properties in Device Manager, under General tab on both it says This device is working properly. Anything else I was supposed to look at? No, not using a mobile rack - hdd's mounted internally and using IDE cables.

 

[LTC8K6]

Under Primary and Secondary controller it should have a tab which shows you what mode each controller is in. It's the Advanced Settings tab.
If you are running an Intel chipset and using Intel's Application Accelerator, you will not have the the info under device manager. You will have to run IAA to find out the modes.

If windows has dropped either your primary or secondary controller into PIO mode, you need to uninstall the controller and let windows redetect it. This will reset the error counter and restore your drive(s) to Ultra DMA operstion.

 

[abradar]

Ok, I'm starting to get the hang of this! There are TWO Primary IDE Channels, one says current transfer mode is N/A, one says PIO mode. There are also TWO Secondary IDE Channels, one says current transfer mode is N/A, one says Ultra DMA Mode 2. Yikes! Do I remove all 4 and let Windows reset everything?

 

[LTC8K6]

Just uninstall the one that is in PIO mode and see how it goes. Reboot and see if it worked.

 

[Philippine Mango]

A good way to make sure that you ALWAYS have DMA enabled is to install the intel application accelerator, go to there website and look up your chipset's drivers. While your there get the chipset drivers because it will help speed up the system.

 

[LTC8K6]

Yep, if you are running an Intel chipset, IAA will stop this from happening.

 

[abradar]

Hooray and Glory Be - it's fixed! Transfer rate is flying again! Thanks for your help because I was totally lost about what was going on or what to do. You guys are the GREATEST!!

Michelle

 

[LTC8K6]

Glad you got it going again.

 

[anyl8r]

I am having a similar problem. I have two Western Digital 120GB (master) and 250GB (slave) drives chained on my primary IDE channel, using the ALi M5229 Bus Master IDE controller, and the master is UDMA mode 5, which is normal, but the slave is in PIO mode.

I tried uninstalling and re-detecting the IDE controller (and separately, I uninstalled the HD as well in winXP) and it did not resolve the issue. ALi's driver page is AWOL, so I'm somewhat stuck here.

Anyone have any advice?

thanks.

BTW i'm running off of the Asus A7A133 mobo.