Dual Hard Dives causing problems

Zaphod1620 · January 3rd, 2005

I have recently bought a 250GB Maxtor HD. I installed it as master one IDE 0 along with my old 120GB drive as slave. I put a fresh copy of windows on it (not dual booting). I kept my old windows install on the old HD until I get everything up on the new one. Everything works fine unless I transfer files between my old HD and the new one. The system will lock up for a few minutes, and stutter along until the files are transferred. I can't do anything else while transferring files. I have the new HD set to Ultra DMA6 and the old one on Ultra DMA 5. Also, Disk management list the old HD as "Active" and my new HD as "System". Anyone know what could be causing this?

Zaphod1620 · January 3rd, 2005

Just found another instance. The system slowing down also happens when I just do a "Search" on the new HD, not even involving the other hard drive. This is a Maxtor 250 GB Ultra 16 drive, by the way.

-Zaphod

drz01 · January 3rd, 2005

Did you change the HD to slave via jumpers? Also is both drives on the same IDE cable or on different channels?

emeritus · January 3rd, 2005

You could try to move the 120 to the secondary ide channel. ALso double check your chipset drivers and make sure they are up to date and set properly for the drives.

Zaphod1620 · January 3rd, 2005

Yup, the jumpers aee set correctly. I don't want to move the HD to the other IDE channel because I have A DVD-RW and a CD-ROM drive there. I don't want to mix the CD drives and the HD drives. Before I bought this drive, I had a small 10 GB drive slaved to the 120GB. There were no problems then, but that was on the other Windows install.

-Zaphod

**sean.ferguson** · January 3rd, 2005

generally speaking, its bad to have two volumes on one channel. For example, a cd-rom and a cd-burner. You couldn't use the burn on the fly option because transfering data in real time on one channel is problematic, and usually just wont work at all.
My opinion would be to put the Slave drive as secondary slave, then boot up and see how you get on. This solved an issue i was having back in 2002 with XP. Same scenario too transfering data from old os drive to new. Would be worth a shot.

drz01 · January 3rd, 2005

Originally Posted by thekore

generally speaking, its bad to have two volumes on one channel. For example, a cd-rom and a cd-burner. You couldn't use the burn on the fly option because transfering data in real time on one channel is problematic, and usually just wont work at all.
My opinion would be to put the Slave drive as secondary slave, then boot up and see how you get on. This solved an issue i was having back in 2002 with XP. Same scenario too transfering data from old os drive to new. Would be worth a shot.

I agree with this statemant. I always split my machines this way. first channel C:\ CD-RW second channel D:\ DVD-RW

Zaphod1620 · January 3rd, 2005

Won't having a CD drive on the same channel as a HD cause slower speed from the HD?

-Zaphod

**Zedric** · January 3rd, 2005

Originally Posted by Zaphod1620

Won't having a CD drive on the same channel as a HD cause slower speed from the HD?

Not on newer systems. Some years ago, it did afaik.

**American Zombie** · January 3rd, 2005

Originally Posted by Zaphod1620

Won't having a CD drive on the same channel as a HD cause slower speed from the HD?

Yes it will and if you have no choice make sure the slower drive is slave but you will still cripple performance of the faster drive.
If you have a cd/dvd burner and cd/dvd rom on the same channel make sure the burner is master to ensure reliable disc creation.

Zaphod1620 · January 4th, 2005

Well, I decided it would be best just to keep my 2nd HD on the same channel as my primary. There won't be alot of inter drive swapping anyway. But why in the world would doing something as simple as running a search on a single dive cause my PC to screech to a halt? It doesn't lock up, but it will do nothing else, and any commands or mouse clicks take 10-30 seconds to register. I'm stumped on this one. Is this just a side effect to having a large HD?

-Zaphod

**Shamus MacNoob** · January 4th, 2005

I have used 2 cdrw/dvd/dvdrw on same ide's and never had trouble with copys and such and os for a large hard drive causeing that I dont see why it would I use 3 x 160 2 are SATA one is IDE plus an 80 and a 40 and nothing is slow in any direction. Have you looked into a bios update>?

Whats your motherboard?

**LeeJend** · January 4th, 2005

I run 2 large HD on my IDE0 and a CDRW and a DVD Burner on my IDE1. There are no problems and no unexpected slow downs.

When you are transfering large files between 2 fast drives in DMA it will slow your system down. You just don't have that much bandwidth in the memory channel (unless you are using an Athlon 64). The same will be true of transfering from a fast DVD or CD drive.

How big are the files you're transfering and how long is it taking?

Go under control panel-system-advanced-performance-settings-advanced
In processor scheduling make sure Programs button is set. It will give priority to the upfront tasks you are trying to do.

And just for grins try setting both HD to UDMA 5.

Zaphod1620 · January 5th, 2005

*sigh* no luck yet. I've made sure my BIOS is up to date (it is), my MOBO drivers are up to date (they are), DMA settings are correct, the drives are set in BIOS to the correct 16 or 32 bit transfer modes, the drives have the correct jumper settings, virtual memory is enabled, programs are set as the priority for processor scheduling and memory usage, I removed the partition on the slave drive and reformatted it, and stayed sober for at least half of the troubleshooting process. I'm betting it is my mobo, Kermit. I have an Abit A7N8X-LA, the last remnant of this Compaq POS it used to be. I've been holding out on upgrading the mobo, because I want to get a 64 bit processor next, but I'm still casing the Circle K so I can afford the AMD64 FX-51 chip. Ah well. I just won't run search and pretend everything is perfect.

**Shamus MacNoob** · January 5th, 2005

That really is a strange one have you got the tools from the hard drives website and tried to run some tests on it to see if it is not faulty?

Zaphod1620 · January 6th, 2005

Yup, even ran a Burn-In test from Maxtor and let it run for 8 hours while I was at work. No errors. It's probably just a combination of my POS motherboard and having two HD's on the same IDE channel.

sharob · January 8th, 2005

Originally Posted by Zaphod1620

Just found another instance. The system slowing down also happens when I just do a "Search" on the new HD, not even involving the other hard drive. This is a Maxtor 250 GB Ultra 16 drive, by the way.
-Zaphod

Zaphod, you say the problem presents itself when you do a search on the new drive. Have you tried disconnecting the slave drive so that the master is the only drive connected to the primary IDE Channel and conducting the search again? This would identify if the slave drive is interferring on the channel or the problem is with the master drive.

RickyC · January 10th, 2005

Have you made sure the Master drive is on the end connector of the cable and the Slave is attatched to the middle connector?

Zaphod1620 · January 10th, 2005

The problem does not occur if I disconnect my slave drive. However, I used to have what is now my slave drive as a master with a 10 GB slave, and this did not happen. For kicks, I tried putting in my old 10 GB drive as a master and kept my current slave drive. No problem. Then I tried using my 10 GB as master and my new drive as the slave. No problem. It only happens when I have my new drive as master.

Yup, my IDE cables are correctly connected. I thinking this is just one of those weird things that I have heard of happening on ultra-big HD's like this.

-Zaphod

January 3rd, 2005	Top \| #1
Zaphod1620 OSNN Junior Addict Joined: October 2004 Posts: 23 Reputation: 0 Power: 93	Dual Hard Dives causing problems I have recently bought a 250GB Maxtor HD. I installed it as master one IDE 0 along with my old 120GB drive as slave. I put a fresh copy of windows on it (not dual booting). I kept my old windows install on the old HD until I get everything up on the new one. Everything works fine unless I transfer files between my old HD and the new one. The system will lock up for a few minutes, and stutter along until the files are transferred. I can't do anything else while transferring files. I have the new HD set to Ultra DMA6 and the old one on Ultra DMA 5. Also, Disk management list the old HD as "Active" and my new HD as "System". Anyone know what could be causing this?

January 3rd, 2005	Top \| #4
emeritus Beware the Monkeys!!! Joined: January 2004 Location: Oakdale, CT Posts: 326 Reputation: 200 Power: 107	You could try to move the 120 to the secondary ide channel. ALso double check your chipset drivers and make sure they are up to date and set properly for the drives. eVGA 780i (nForce v15.17) Intel Q9450 Quad-Core (Running @ 3.2Ghz w/1600Mhz FSB) Zalman CNPS9700 LED CPU Cooler OCZ Platinum PC2-8500 4Gb DDR2 RAM (4x1GB, Dual Channel) eVGA 8800GTS(G92) 512 x2 SLI (GeForce v177.79) Samsung 750Gb SATAII HD x2 LG GSA-H55N/L DVD+/-RW x2 Thermaltake Armor VA8003BWS Black Case Ultra X3 1000W PS Windows XP:Pro SP3 Gateway FHD2400 24" 1920 x 1200 LCD

January 3rd, 2005	Top \| #6
sean.ferguson OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: July 2003 Location: Fife; Scotland Posts: 1,693 Reputation: 550 Power: 130	generally speaking, its bad to have two volumes on one channel. For example, a cd-rom and a cd-burner. You couldn't use the burn on the fly option because transfering data in real time on one channel is problematic, and usually just wont work at all. My opinion would be to put the Slave drive as secondary slave, then boot up and see how you get on. This solved an issue i was having back in 2002 with XP. Same scenario too transfering data from old os drive to new. Would be worth a shot. Mac - 13-inch Macbook Core Duo 1.83GHz\| 1GB Ram \| 120GB Internal \| BT & AE \| OS 10.5 PC- Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 1.8GHz \| 2GB Dual Channel Ram \| 360GB Internal \| Lite-On DVDRW \| Radeon X1300XT \| Vista Home Premium 64-bit

January 3rd, 2005	Top \| #7
drz01 Weekend DJ Joined: March 2004 Location: Toronto Posts: 524 Reputation: 820 Power: 113	Originally Posted by thekore generally speaking, its bad to have two volumes on one channel. For example, a cd-rom and a cd-burner. You couldn't use the burn on the fly option because transfering data in real time on one channel is problematic, and usually just wont work at all. My opinion would be to put the Slave drive as secondary slave, then boot up and see how you get on. This solved an issue i was having back in 2002 with XP. Same scenario too transfering data from old os drive to new. Would be worth a shot. I agree with this statemant. I always split my machines this way. first channel C:\ CD-RW second channel D:\ DVD-RW

January 3rd, 2005	Top \| #9
Zedric NTFS Guru Joined: January 2002 Location: Sweden Posts: 4,006 Reputation: 890 Power: 175	Originally Posted by Zaphod1620 Won't having a CD drive on the same channel as a HD cause slower speed from the HD? Not on newer systems. Some years ago, it did afaik. Did I help you? Please use the reputation system. Click the icon on the left! Proud host of the OSNN.net folding sigs. Want one? Check the folding thread! http://zedric.no-ip.com/

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January 3rd, 2005	Top \| #2
Zaphod1620 OSNN Junior Addict Joined: October 2004 Posts: 23 Reputation: 0 Power: 93	Just found another instance. The system slowing down also happens when I just do a "Search" on the new HD, not even involving the other hard drive. This is a Maxtor 250 GB Ultra 16 drive, by the way. -Zaphod

January 3rd, 2005	Top \| #3
drz01 Weekend DJ Joined: March 2004 Location: Toronto Posts: 524 Reputation: 820 Power: 113	Did you change the HD to slave via jumpers? Also is both drives on the same IDE cable or on different channels?

January 3rd, 2005	Top \| #5
Zaphod1620 OSNN Junior Addict Joined: October 2004 Posts: 23 Reputation: 0 Power: 93	Yup, the jumpers aee set correctly. I don't want to move the HD to the other IDE channel because I have A DVD-RW and a CD-ROM drive there. I don't want to mix the CD drives and the HD drives. Before I bought this drive, I had a small 10 GB drive slaved to the 120GB. There were no problems then, but that was on the other Windows install. -Zaphod

January 3rd, 2005	Top \| #8
Zaphod1620 OSNN Junior Addict Joined: October 2004 Posts: 23 Reputation: 0 Power: 93	Won't having a CD drive on the same channel as a HD cause slower speed from the HD? -Zaphod

January 3rd, 2005	Top \| #10
American Zombie OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: June 2004 Location: Seattle Posts: 2,864 Reputation: 2689 Power: 151	Originally Posted by Zaphod1620 Won't having a CD drive on the same channel as a HD cause slower speed from the HD? Yes it will and if you have no choice make sure the slower drive is slave but you will still cripple performance of the faster drive. If you have a cd/dvd burner and cd/dvd rom on the same channel make sure the burner is master to ensure reliable disc creation.

January 4th, 2005	Top \| #11
Zaphod1620 OSNN Junior Addict Joined: October 2004 Posts: 23 Reputation: 0 Power: 93	Well, I decided it would be best just to keep my 2nd HD on the same channel as my primary. There won't be alot of inter drive swapping anyway. But why in the world would doing something as simple as running a search on a single dive cause my PC to screech to a halt? It doesn't lock up, but it will do nothing else, and any commands or mouse clicks take 10-30 seconds to register. I'm stumped on this one. Is this just a side effect to having a large HD? -Zaphod

January 4th, 2005	Top \| #12
Shamus MacNoob OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: January 2002 Location: Brossard,Quebec Posts: 4,199 Blog Entries: 1 Reputation: 1481 Power: 182	I have used 2 cdrw/dvd/dvdrw on same ide's and never had trouble with copys and such and os for a large hard drive causeing that I dont see why it would I use 3 x 160 2 are SATA one is IDE plus an 80 and a 40 and nothing is slow in any direction. Have you looked into a bios update>? Whats your motherboard? ASUS PN5-E SLI,Intel E8400,2 x 8800GTX 768mb SLI,ASUS VW266H 26 inch LCD, 8 GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer, Silverstone Strider 850watt PSU.Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.

January 4th, 2005	Top \| #13
LeeJend OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: January 2003 Location: Fort Worth, TX Posts: 5,261 Reputation: 3386 Power: 199	I run 2 large HD on my IDE0 and a CDRW and a DVD Burner on my IDE1. There are no problems and no unexpected slow downs. When you are transfering large files between 2 fast drives in DMA it will slow your system down. You just don't have that much bandwidth in the memory channel (unless you are using an Athlon 64). The same will be true of transfering from a fast DVD or CD drive. How big are the files you're transfering and how long is it taking? Go under control panel-system-advanced-performance-settings-advanced In processor scheduling make sure Programs button is set. It will give priority to the upfront tasks you are trying to do. And just for grins try setting both HD to UDMA 5. Thought for the new millenium: In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates? - Open Office - Firefox - Thunderbird - Gimp -Ubuntu - Red Hat -

January 5th, 2005	Top \| #14
Zaphod1620 OSNN Junior Addict Joined: October 2004 Posts: 23 Reputation: 0 Power: 93	sigh no luck yet. I've made sure my BIOS is up to date (it is), my MOBO drivers are up to date (they are), DMA settings are correct, the drives are set in BIOS to the correct 16 or 32 bit transfer modes, the drives have the correct jumper settings, virtual memory is enabled, programs are set as the priority for processor scheduling and memory usage, I removed the partition on the slave drive and reformatted it, and stayed sober for at least half of the troubleshooting process. I'm betting it is my mobo, Kermit. I have an Abit A7N8X-LA, the last remnant of this Compaq POS it used to be. I've been holding out on upgrading the mobo, because I want to get a 64 bit processor next, but I'm still casing the Circle K so I can afford the AMD64 FX-51 chip. Ah well. I just won't run search and pretend everything is perfect.

January 5th, 2005	Top \| #15
Shamus MacNoob OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: January 2002 Location: Brossard,Quebec Posts: 4,199 Blog Entries: 1 Reputation: 1481 Power: 182	That really is a strange one have you got the tools from the hard drives website and tried to run some tests on it to see if it is not faulty? ASUS PN5-E SLI,Intel E8400,2 x 8800GTX 768mb SLI,ASUS VW266H 26 inch LCD, 8 GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer, Silverstone Strider 850watt PSU.Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.

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January 6th, 2005	Top \| #16
Zaphod1620 OSNN Junior Addict Joined: October 2004 Posts: 23 Reputation: 0 Power: 93	Yup, even ran a Burn-In test from Maxtor and let it run for 8 hours while I was at work. No errors. It's probably just a combination of my POS motherboard and having two HD's on the same IDE channel.

January 8th, 2005	Top \| #17
sharob Interesting Joined: January 2005 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 232 Reputation: 290 Power: 94	They the new drive alone Originally Posted by Zaphod1620 Just found another instance. The system slowing down also happens when I just do a "Search" on the new HD, not even involving the other hard drive. This is a Maxtor 250 GB Ultra 16 drive, by the way. -Zaphod Zaphod, you say the problem presents itself when you do a search on the new drive. Have you tried disconnecting the slave drive so that the master is the only drive connected to the primary IDE Channel and conducting the search again? This would identify if the slave drive is interferring on the channel or the problem is with the master drive. Please use the Reputation System! If you thought a post was helpful or interesting, click the under the member's avatar to award positive reputation points and encourage useful posts on the forum.

January 10th, 2005	Top \| #18
RickyC OSNN Addict Joined: September 2004 Location: Earth Posts: 199 Reputation: 110 Power: 96	Have you made sure the Master drive is on the end connector of the cable and the Slave is attatched to the middle connector?

January 10th, 2005	Top \| #19
Zaphod1620 OSNN Junior Addict Joined: October 2004 Posts: 23 Reputation: 0 Power: 93	The problem does not occur if I disconnect my slave drive. However, I used to have what is now my slave drive as a master with a 10 GB slave, and this did not happen. For kicks, I tried putting in my old 10 GB drive as a master and kept my current slave drive. No problem. Then I tried using my 10 GB as master and my new drive as the slave. No problem. It only happens when I have my new drive as master. Yup, my IDE cables are correctly connected. I thinking this is just one of those weird things that I have heard of happening on ultra-big HD's like this. -Zaphod