Slow Loading Problems

[fewpeople]

I'm having problems with my old computer, currently it takes forever (5-10mins) to get past the "Starting Windows" page for Windows 7. When I go and try to re-install Windows 7, it takes like 10 minutes to get to screen where I can even install Windows.

Here is my hardware:

Asus P5PGD1
Antec Earthwatts 500W (Brand new)
2GB Crucial DDR400
500GB Seagate Barracuda (ST3500418AS) SATA (Brand new)
Gigabyte 6600GT

Some other notes:
-I had problems with WinXP also. It would get to the loading screen, then bluescreen me.
-I've ran memtest86, no errors found


Thanks ahead of time.

 

[Mongox]

Try it without any external devices connected, no USB devices of any kind - except KB/Mouse if you have those. Make sure USB kb and mouse are turned on in BIOS also!

 

[fewpeople]

Mongox, I fixed the slow loading times, using your method of removing everything except the KB/Mouse and HDD. I replugged everything in one by one and found that the slowness was being caused by 2 items: my old DVD-ROM drive and another HDD. So thanks for helping me solve that!

However, the HDD that was causing the slowness contains a lot of data that i'd like to backup. It used to be the primary drive for when I had Windows XP installed, but it started giving me bluescreens and wouldn't load into WinXP. Therefore, I was trying to set this HDD as a slave so I could port it over all the data that I wanted, but as you know, this resulted in 1) really slow loading times into Win7 2) Once it did get into Win7, the HDD couldn't be detected. So is there any way I can retrieve this data?

Thanks again in advance!

 

[Mongox]

It may be that it's not actually Win7 that's not detecting it, but that a slow hardware failure has finally caught up to it. That is, it might not be readable under any OS now. But let's not give up on it yet.

I'm not using Win7, but should have the ability to read older formats, including FAT32 that your drive might be using. But I haven't actually looked into it. I'll see what I can find out. But since many devices, such as most USB thumb drives will continue to use FAT32, I can't see it not supporting it for hard drives.

I assume we're talking about IDE drives, what some call ATA or PATA drives now. Is it possible that you never got the Master/Slave working correctly? If you list for me the brand and model of all the IDE drives you have in the system, I can help you with the jumper settings.

You've got the new SATA Seagate, so it's not involved. Are the only two IDEs you have this old HD and the DVD drive?

 

[fewpeople]

Mongox, thanks for the reply again

Yea, I don`t think it`s Win7 either, I think it has more to do with the HDD.

Some other notes:
- The HDD causing problems is a Western Digital 500GB SATAII (WD5000AAKS) <-- I bought this around 1.5- 2 years ago
- This HDD was formatted for NTFS, *I think*, since it used to be the primary HDD, and it was running WinXP pro. One day, the HDD wouldn`t get past the WinXP load screen and just kept bluescreened me. So that`s why I took the Seagate, installed Win7 and tried to slave the Western Digital to recover the files.
- I ran the Western Digital diagnostic tools via a CD, and it didn`t reveal any problems. Also, the HDD is being detected by the BIOS.
- Right now the only IDE devices installed is my DVD-RW (it`s another DVD drive, not the DVD drive that was causing the problem) and a floppy disk drive
- I`ve slaved 2 other SATA HDD`s alongside the Seagate primary, and they work fine, no slowdowns, no errors detecting, etc

My main thing is to get the data from the Western Digital HDD since I got a feeling if I were to reformat this drive, it would once again work properly. I don`t think it`s physically damaged, so i`m still hoping!

Thanks again!

 

[Mongox]

One thing I was going to check is whether all the SATA ports/headers on your motherboard are equal - some MBs dedicate a couple to RAID. I wasn't able to do so because I couldn't find your Asus model.
You listed it as:Asus P5PGD1

http://usa.asus.com/Search.aspx?SearchKey=P5P
This link shows all Asus boards starting with P5P and I couldn't match the list to yours. Please post the model name and the link to the Asus site for it.

And check out those SATA's in the manual.

Don't reformat until you've tried everything else - I hate to lose data even when it isn't mine!!

 

[fewpeople]

My bad, it's P5GD1.

ASUS P5GD1
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=HFHMksM8Eivmzqbk&templete=2

 

[Mongox]

There's mention of only using SATA ports 1 and 2 for S3 function. That would make me check my power settings in both the BIOS and Windows. For testing, make sure to disable all sleep functions in Windows and might try various settings in BIOS

And make sure your primary drive is on port 1, problem drive on port 2. This is good anyway since it makes your boot drive the default boot drive.

And try all the ports too for the bad drive.

Look in Computer Mgt and see if the drives listed, perhaps with a non-DOS partition. DON'T change it if it is. Start / Run / compmgmt.msc then to Storage Devices.

I decided if I'm gonna read all these manuals, I'd start capturing amusing graphics from them. Here's one from your manual.

Doesn't compare with the XFX manual with this really small guy wandering around inside the case. Well, or REALLY big RAM.

 

[fewpeople]

Hi Mongox,

I'm unfortunately back to square one. My parents were using the computer, and then it crashed on them. They told me they were using the internet, browsing and then suddenly everything froze and eventually the computer restarted. Now I can't even get past the bios screen, it stops at "Detecting Third IDE Master"... I haven't taken apart my machine yet to isolate the problem since this just happened. Currently, this is the exact same setup as when the computer was running smoothly. I'll do a more thourough inspection and get back to this thread, but does this provide any insights into what had went wrong?

I've attached the diagram you provided and highlighted all the drive's that are attached in red:

 

[Mongox]

Well, I'd try taking the "bad" SATA drive out and trying it in another computer - just long enough to see if you can get the data off.

The diagram doesn't show the port/header numbers on it, so can't tell if you have the primary SATA in port 1. But the numbering of the ports doesn't necessarily match the order/number of the ports in the BIOS/POST. I have 5 internal SATA ports and they have numbers which have no relationship to the actual order the drives appear in the BIOS. I made myself a chart by plugging a single SATA drive into each of the ports to see how it came up, ie, IDE 2/Master, IDE3/Slave, etc...

But that doesn't really matter, just makes it nice to have the primary SATA drive on the 1st available position when it comes to boot order.

Pull that bad drive and see if it'll work on another computer to recover the data.

Here's a better diagram of your motherboard. I just take screen shots of your pdf manual to get these. Very handy when trying to fiddle with the motherboard connections, since you can print the diagram and refer while computer off. I have lots of my MB, showing closeups of the connections so I don't have to use the magnifying glass on the paper manual!