Tough HD problem. Accessing 2nd drive is slow and pauses computer.

[ravedave]

setup:
Win 98
2 maxtors (20,30GB) on same cable
Abit KT7A
Duron 700
Tnt2

If I play a media file off my C drive it works fine. If i play it off my D drive I get stuttering and pauses (takes about 1:10 to watch 1 min of video)
Sometimes if i do any sort of file access on D it will totally freeze my mouse for a few seconds. I have all the latest VIA drivers. I have tried setting my PC in "desktop mode" and "sever mode" under my computer properties. Both drives are in UDMA mode 4 (Uata 66). I have 512MB of PC133Sdram...I cant think of anythign else.. This is gettign quite frustrating. Any suggestions?

Thanks!
Dave

 

[HappyPuppy]

Have you run scandisk and defrag on the D drive lately.

 

[MWink]

I have seen this before on a laptop drive. It would make the system stutter whenever accessing. Though the drive passed the tests it was obviously defective. I knew it had to be a bad drive as I tried it in two systems and it was the same exact model I had in my laptop. Also it took forever to run the test program. It sounds like you are in the same boat. You should probably RMA the drive. Though first you may want to try it on another channel with another cable.

 

[canadianpsycho]

Download the latest MaxBlast util from Maxtor and do a check of the drives, Maxtor does have that "no quibble" warranty thing.

That's if you can't solve the problem

 

[ravedave]

I think its a motherboard or OS thing. the drive that makes my comp pause now, used to be my primary drive and it worked fine. I tried switching channels but I had some problems with slave/master stuff and I didnt feel like taking the time to dig out my manual. The problem is that thats not a perm soln because I have 2 HD's and 2 CD-Roms. I went thru the BIOs and turned off all the stuff I coudl think of like block mode and such and I noticed no diff. I also tried MS's support pages (which were useless). Is there some settign I'm missing? Does anyone else have an Abit KT7 with @ HD's?

 

[ZZZZZZ]

Try setting the jumpers on the HDs to CS (Cable Select) and see if the problem is resolved.