Small, but very annoying, HD problem

C

cdmjr

New Member
I recently purchased a Western Digital 7200 RPM 160 GB hard drive, and installed it. I partitioned the disk into three NTFS drives. It all went smoothly, so I moved a lot of my larger files, and my collection of MP3s, onto one of the new drive partitions. I also moved some video files there.

Now here's my problem. The MP3 files all play with skips every few seconds, which makes for a very annoying listening experience. And some of the video files also play very sluggish and choppy.

I also had a problem burning a DVD (the burning program and the files I was burning are both on the new disk). The burner took twice as long as normal to burn.

Also, when I use Azureus to download something to one of the new drives, it slows down my entire computer.

Since the problem began, I ran the Western Digital troubleshooting program, and Checkdisk on the new drive. The WD program found nothing wrong (go figure), and Checkdisk seems to have fixed the problem with my DVD burning. But I still have the problems with MP3s, Video files, and Azureus.

I emailed WD's customer service and I'm waiting for a reply from them. But if anyone here knows of something else I can try, or a similar problem that was solved, please help.

Also, I'm running Windows XP Home Edition on a Dell Dimension 3000.
 
If XP or the installer didn't do that automatically, then no. And, though I know a small inkling about computers, I'm still novice enough to not know what DMA access is, nor how to do it.

So how would I go about finding out if it is or not, how do I enable DMA access, and most importantly, would that fix my problem?
 
Start / Settings / Control panel / System / Hardware / Device manager / IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers / Primary IDE channel / Advanced settings
At the Transfer mode select "DMA if available".
 
Okay, it's actually my secondary Hard Drive, but I checked both IDE channels, and they're already set to "DMA if available".

So that's already done, and it hasn't been helping for my mp3 quality, or anything else. Any other thoughts on what could be wrong?
 
What is the jumper set at? Set it to slave if its not on it already.

Dont leave it on cable select. And its obviously not the Master.

Im not sure if that will help you, but it did correct a problem I had like that some time ago....
 
Okay the jumpers are already set properly. I just saw that bit about cable select in the slip of paper that came with the new HD. How do I turn that off, or make sure it's not on or whatever?
 
In the Advanced Settings for both of my hard drives, "Device 0" is set to "DMA if Available" and "Device 1" is set to "DMA if Available" also. But on Device 1 it says "PIO Mode" for Current Transfer Mode, while Device 0 says Ultra DMA Mode 2. This is the same on both drives.

Changing it to PIO has no effect on anything, also. So of the Transfer Mode on Device 1 is set at PIO no matter what I change, would that have an effect? Well it shouldn't, if the first hard drive has no problems playing. I'm so confused! Is it maybe a defective drive? Or has anyone else heard of anything like this before?
 
How to I connect the second hd like that? Do I just hook the jumpers up exactly the same as on the primary master? Because I've already tried that and it came up with a message reading "Primary Disk not found" or something on startup. I could've, obviously, done it wrong. But is that what you mean?
 
Connect the second hdd to the secondary IDE channel (you'll need another IDE cable for that) with the jumper set as master.
 
No dice. It's still giving me the same problems connected as the secondary master. And why does it matter if I have three partitions? Unless you think having the partitions are causing the problem.
 
I never got any reply back from WD...good customer service there. So should I just return the drive and get a different one, or would you expect there to be a similar problem with the next HD?
 
Bah this is annoying. Unless someone has another idea, I guess I'll try re-partitioning the disk as one drive as a last resort, and then take it it back if THAT doesn't work. Humbug.
 
No, it did not. I finally did it today, and it did nothing to change the problem. Which is irritating. Does anybody else have ANY other ideas before I take this junk back on Monday (and hope a new drive works)?
 
they're already set to "DMA if available".
Click to expand...
And what does it actually run at (the box right below that). If it's PIO mode then you need to set it in BIOS too

Okay the jumpers are already set properly. I just saw that bit about cable select in the slip of paper that came with the new HD. How do I turn that off, or make sure it's not on or whatever?
Click to expand...
If the jumpers are "set properly" then you dont have to worry about cable select

why do you need 3 partitions....
Click to expand...
Dude wants a bit of help, so let's help before critiquing (unless you're going somewhere with that)

As for performance, check that youve enabled write caching as well as installed all the latest drivers for everything (and enabled acceleration)
 
"Quote:
why do you need 3 partitions....


Dude wants a bit of help, so let's help before critiquing (unless you're going somewhere with that)"

i was gunna say make it all one partition, but apperantly din't work... but preator, i'm not an expert. unlike yourself :)
 
Praetor said:
And what does it actually run at (the box right below that). If it's PIO mode then you need to set it in BIOS too
Click to expand...

How do I set it in BIOS? I went into the utility available on startup and couldn't find out how to do it there, so is there another way?

Also, when I went into Drive Configuration, it said I don't have a Primary Slave drive, or a Secondary Slave drive. I actually have two CD drives (One just a CD player drive, the other a DVD burner) on my secondary IDE cable, with my two HDs on my primary IDE cable. So is it normal for it to show only one HD and one CD drive, or is there some way to change this? Because it wouldn't let me set turn the two other drives on.

Bah, I hope I described this well enough.

(edit: it is set to PIO mode, btw)
 
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