Very Slow IDE Speeds

[simon_t]

Hi there,

I have an old 250GB IDE drive which is full. I'm looking to move this data across to my C drive so that I can get rid of it and replace it with something bigger and faster.

The problem is, transfer speeds won't go any higher than 1.25MB/sec. It's going to take FOREVER to transfer 250GB worth of data at this speed.

Could anyone suggest how I could go about increasing the throughput?

Many thanks

Simon

 

[WyomingKnott]

1) How is it connected to the system? Directly to a motherboard IDE slot, in an external housing, IDE to SATA converter, or smoke signals?

2) If I were really curious, I'd run a benchmark on the IDE drive alone to find out if the drive is simply slow or if the problem is somewhere in the IDE to PC to SATA path.

3) If you've been using this drive all along, has it always been this slow? This is sort of a seat-of-the-pants shorcut for the second question.

Based on answers to the above, we can progress. 1.25 MB/sec is indeed slow for an IDE drive.

 

[simon_t]

Thank you for the response. I will answer the questions in order:

1) It's connected directly to the mobo via a standard IDE ribbon cable.

2) I have yet to run a benchmark test, but I can do that now and will report back.

3) It hasn't been this slow previously. It's actually a really recent occurance. About a month ago, my computer restarted without warning and then wouldn't boot up. I eventually got it working but my system would hang on the 'Starting Windows' screen for about 30 minutes before proceeding to load the OS fully so I could use it. The slow drive speed and the issue described above are probably related.
A full description of the original crash can be found here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25916-63-boot-problem#t112215

I'm not sure if it would help though!

Once again, thanks for your assistance.

 

[WyomingKnott]

From my reading of your original thread, the IDE drive is not the boot drive. Is this correct?

Given your original thread, were it my machine I would download the manufacturer's diagnostics for my C drive and test it. After backing it up, that is. Just in case the drive is the source of the problem.

 

[simon_t]

That's correct yes. I have a 1TB SATA as my boot drive. The IDE that is playing up (250GB) is used just for storage of music applications and samples that I have.

 

[simon_t]

An interesting observation is that the PC boots up fine if the 1TB drive is connected on it's own. As soon as the 250GB IDE drive is connected, the boot process hangs for around 30 minutes.

 

[WyomingKnott]

Hold a funeral for the drive.

If you want to be really, really thorough, take it to the home of a friend who has a machine with an IDE controller and test it again, to make sure it is the drive and not the controller.

It will only take about two and a half days to copy all the data from that drive to your C drive at the data rate you are getting. Start the copy and go do something else for a while. It may waste days, but how much of your time are you willing to invest trying to eliminate that wait?

 

[simon_t]

Hold a funeral for the drive.

If you want to be really, really thorough, take it to the home of a friend who has a machine with an IDE controller and test it again, to make sure it is the drive and not the controller.

It will only take about two and a half days to copy all the data from that drive to your C drive at the data rate you are getting. Start the copy and go do something else for a while. It may waste days, but how much of your time are you willing to invest trying to eliminate that wait?

Yep, you're right. I will set my PC up in the living room where it won't disturb me and I will just let it run for a few days.

Thank you for your help.

Simon

 

[Hawkeye22]

Make sure your drives are running in DMA mode and not PIO mode.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472

 

[jitpublisher]

As suggested already, check to make sure it is running in the correct mode, and reload the drivers for your controller from your motherboard disk. Sometimes during a glitch, or unexpected crash and restart, Windows will replace the OEM drivers with generic Windows drivers, which will cause the slow speeds.

 

[dextermat]

Hi, Is it a 40 or 80 IDE cable?

If the drive is full (like 99.9%) it might have allocation problem so chkdsk might help solve the slow problem.

Also you should delete anything you don't want to transfer.

What model of HD is the 250 gb.

And yes it might take a while to transfer.

In your previous post you say the HD may be damage: their is not much you can do more than try to copy your stuff and it could take days.

you can put the HD in a static free bag and freeze it for 24 hours, might help if you have thermal problems with HD.

Good luck