TeraByte Unlimited

short story:-

OS partiton of Windows XP, sp3 occupying approx 30 GB on 80 GB HDD works fine.

Motherboard is Intel D102GGC2L

When image of this partition is restored to a new 500GB Seagate barracuda drive replacing the 80 GB HDD, the computer gradually slows down and becomes unusable.

The symptoms don't seem (to me) consistent with drive access problems.

more details:-

Image of the OS partition (C:) is a routine one made recently with IFL

It works without apparent problems on existing 80 GB HDD.

When restored (with IFL) to the free space on the new 500 GB HDD, made active, and booted, the first boot seems normal.
On completion of boot, Windows message indicates new hardware detected and drivers need to be installed, requesting re-boot.

On reboot, boot time is much longer and computer gradually runs slower and slower from then on.
During boot, if Task manager started once desktop is visible, can see that CPU is heavily used and maxed out at 100% much of the time.

After boot completed, computer gradually becomes unusable with strange symptoms (eg mouse pointer is slow to follow mouse movement, and is jerky, everything seems unduly slow even if HDD is apparently not being accessed - no activity on HDD light).
CPU not necessarily maxed out while observing slow mouse pointer behaviour though.

Computer presently being used with original 80 GB HDD ok, new 500 GB drive sitting on shelf.

What I have tried:-

1. Uninstalled Avira antivirus to check if it was the culprit. Used the computer for a while, not connected to internet.
Absence of Avira didn't make any noticeable difference.

2. Checked under device manager to see what drivers installed. No evidence of any new drivers installed - just the generic ones Windows uses with the drive controller.
Seagate site reminds that drivers not necessary with HDDs - drivers are for the drive controller on the motherboard, and provided by the motherboard manufacturer.

3. To check the image, found a spare 40 GB HDD and restored the image to it.
40 GB HDD ran OK - no sign of the problems seen with the 500 GB HDD.

The way the computer is behaving is as though it is constantly busy doing something on its own, once the 500 GB drive is installed, and this has me stumped.

I have BING and recently purchased BIBM, but haven't used it yet.

Would be grateful for ideas on how I can track down and fix this strange problem.

Thanks,
John S

Is the controller in IDE mode? Has it reverted to PIO Mode instead of DMA Mode?

Have you checked the cable?

Are the drives IDE or SATA? Are all the drives running in the same mode (SATA, SATA 2, etc.)?

sounds like either your IDE cable isn't a good quality 80 conductor cable
(or is the new drive on a different controller or SATA?), something is up
with the drive (or drive/chipset interface) itself, or windows is busy doing
something like rebuilding indexes, etc.. (could leave it on overnight).
You'd want to look in your event logs, get something like process explorer
to see if you can figure out what is eating the CPU cycles, etc...


"oakeny" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

short story:-

OS partiton of Windows XP, sp3 occupying approx 30 GB on 80 GB HDD works
fine.

Motherboard is Intel D102GGC2L

When image of this partition is restored to a new 500GB Seagate barracuda
drive replacing the 80 GB HDD, the computer gradually slows down and becomes
unusable.

The symptoms don't seem (to me) consistent with drive access problems.

more details:-

Image of the OS partition (C:) is a routine one made recently with IFL

It works without apparent problems on existing 80 GB HDD.

When restored (with IFL) to the free space on the new 500 GB HDD, made
active, and booted, the first boot seems normal.
On completion of boot, Windows message indicates new hardware detected and
drivers need to be installed, requesting re-boot.

On reboot, boot time is much longer and computer gradually runs slower and
slower from then on.
During boot, if Task manager started once desktop is visible, can see that
CPU is heavily used and maxed out at 100% much of the time.

After boot completed, computer gradually becomes unusable with strange
symptoms (eg mouse pointer is slow to follow mouse movement, and is jerky,
everything seems unduly slow even if HDD is apparently not being accessed -
no activity on HDD light).
CPU not necessarily maxed out while observing slow mouse pointer behaviour
though.

Computer presently being used with original 80 GB HDD ok, new 500 GB drive
sitting on shelf.

What I have tried:-

1. Uninstalled Avira antivirus to check if it was the culprit. Used the
computer for a while, not connected to internet.
Absence of Avira didn't make any noticeable difference.

2. Checked under device manager to see what drivers installed. No evidence
of any new drivers installed - just the generic ones Windows uses with the
drive controller.
Seagate site reminds that drivers not necessary with HDDs - drivers are for
the drive controller on the motherboard, and provided by the motherboard
manufacturer.

3. To check the image, found a spare 40 GB HDD and restored the image to it.
40 GB HDD ran OK - no sign of the problems seen with the 500 GB HDD.

The way the computer is behaving is as though it is constantly busy doing
something on its own, once the 500 GB drive is installed, and this has me
stumped.

I have BING and recently purchased BIBM, but haven't used it yet.

Would be grateful for ideas on how I can track down and fix this strange
problem.

Thanks,
John S

On Sat, 2 Mar 2013 22:55:16 PST, TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:

> Is the controller in IDE mode? Has it reverted to PIO Mode instead of DMA Mode?
>
> Have you checked the cable?
>
> Are the drives IDE or SATA? Are all the drives running in the same mode (SATA, SATA 2, etc.)?

Sorry for delay in responding, and thanks for your reply.
As best I can answer the above queries:-

The only BIOS settings I could find that seemed relevant to your first
query are under Drive Configuration and are:-

Use Automatic mode (alternate choice is Disable)
ATA/IDE mode (alternate choice is Legacy)
S.M.A.R.T. (alternate choice is Disable)
SATA Port 0 ST380811AS - 80.0 GB (I think this is the system drive)
SATA Port 2 ST380817AS - 80.0 GB (I think this is the Data drive)
Primary Master HL -DT -ST DVDRAM -ATAPI
Hard Disk pre-Delay [0] (choices are 0 thru 30)

(At the moment I'm using the original 80 GB drive as the new 500 GB drive
makes the computer unusable)

These (above) are the only headings in the section with entries alongside
them.

The SATA cable used when I had the 500 GB drive installed was the same
cable as used by the original 80 GB drive. - I just swapped the drive plugs
over.

Both the 500 GB drive and the original 80 GB drive listed above are SATA.

Is there some other way I can tell what mode a drive is running in apart
from the BIOS readings listed above?

Thanks for trying to help.

PS - two things I forgot to mention in my original post:-

1) The 500 GB drive was put into another computer and checked with chkdsk
and also with the Seagate diagnostic tools and passed both tests with no
faults.

2) With this computer I have never had any luck with various versions of
IFD. At one stage I tried to use IFD (v2.79) to restore the image to the
500 GB drive. Shortly after the restore began, it stopped with an error
message indicating it could not write to the drive. Don't know whether
that has any significance - might be something to do with the BIOS as this
kind of error has happened in the past too. IFL does the restore with no
problems.

On Sat, 2 Mar 2013 23:11:14 PST, TeraByte Support wrote:

> sounds like either your IDE cable isn't a good quality 80 conductor cable
> (or is the new drive on a different controller or SATA?), something is up
> with the drive (or drive/chipset interface) itself, or windows is busy doing
> something like rebuilding indexes, etc.. (could leave it on overnight).
> You'd want to look in your event logs, get something like process explorer
> to see if you can figure out what is eating the CPU cycles, etc...

Thanks for your response, and my apologies for the delay in replying.
Same SATA cable was used for the 500 GB drive as with the original 80 GB
drive - I just swapped the plugs over, so the larger drive was also on the
same controller when installed.

I did start Process Explorer at one stage with the 500 GB drive installed;
from memory I didn't see anything obviously amiss when I clicked on the CPU
column to sort the entries by this value.

Not sure which event logs I should look at, and where to find them?

I may try re-installing the 500 GB drive with a fresh restore of the image
when I get the chance, and leave on for some time to check if file indexing
might be the problem. From memory I turned off indexing in Windows XP ages
ago, but it might have somehow been enabled again - must look into that.

PS - two things I forgot to mention in my original post:-

1) The 500 GB drive was put into another computer and checked with chkdsk
and also with the Seagate diagnostic tools and passed both tests with no
faults.

2) With this computer I have never had any luck with various versions of
IFD. At one stage I tried to use IFD (v2.79) to restore the image to the
500 GB drive. Shortly after the restore began, it stopped with an error
message indicating it could not write to the drive. Don't know whether
that has any significance - might be something to do with the BIOS as this
kind of error has happened in the past too. IFL does the restore with no
problems.






> "oakeny" wrote in message news:[email protected]...
>
> short story:-
>
> OS partiton of Windows XP, sp3 occupying approx 30 GB on 80 GB HDD works
> fine.
>
> Motherboard is Intel D102GGC2L
>
> When image of this partition is restored to a new 500GB Seagate barracuda
> drive replacing the 80 GB HDD, the computer gradually slows down and becomes
> unusable.
>
> The symptoms don't seem (to me) consistent with drive access problems.
>
> more details:-
>
> Image of the OS partition (C:) is a routine one made recently with IFL
>
> It works without apparent problems on existing 80 GB HDD.
>
> When restored (with IFL) to the free space on the new 500 GB HDD, made
> active, and booted, the first boot seems normal.
> On completion of boot, Windows message indicates new hardware detected and
> drivers need to be installed, requesting re-boot.
>
> On reboot, boot time is much longer and computer gradually runs slower and
> slower from then on.
> During boot, if Task manager started once desktop is visible, can see that
> CPU is heavily used and maxed out at 100% much of the time.
>
> After boot completed, computer gradually becomes unusable with strange
> symptoms (eg mouse pointer is slow to follow mouse movement, and is jerky,
> everything seems unduly slow even if HDD is apparently not being accessed -
> no activity on HDD light).
> CPU not necessarily maxed out while observing slow mouse pointer behaviour
> though.
>
> Computer presently being used with original 80 GB HDD ok, new 500 GB drive
> sitting on shelf.
>
> What I have tried:-
>
> 1. Uninstalled Avira antivirus to check if it was the culprit. Used the
> computer for a while, not connected to internet.
> Absence of Avira didn't make any noticeable difference.
>
> 2. Checked under device manager to see what drivers installed. No evidence
> of any new drivers installed - just the generic ones Windows uses with the
> drive controller.
> Seagate site reminds that drivers not necessary with HDDs - drivers are for
> the drive controller on the motherboard, and provided by the motherboard
> manufacturer.
>
> 3. To check the image, found a spare 40 GB HDD and restored the image to it.
> 40 GB HDD ran OK - no sign of the problems seen with the 500 GB HDD.
>
> The way the computer is behaving is as though it is constantly busy doing
> something on its own, once the 500 GB drive is installed, and this has me
> stumped.
>
> I have BING and recently purchased BIBM, but haven't used it yet.
>
> Would be grateful for ideas on how I can track down and fix this strange
> problem.
>
> Thanks,
> John S

On Wed, 6 Mar 2013 02:20:39 PST, John S wrote:

> On Sat, 2 Mar 2013 22:55:16 PST, TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:
>
>> Is the controller in IDE mode? Has it reverted to PIO Mode instead of DMA Mode?
>>
>> Have you checked the cable?
>>
>> Are the drives IDE or SATA? Are all the drives running in the same mode (SATA, SATA 2, etc.)?

The following bit was mangled by my newsreader - possibly because I copied
exactly what was in the BIOS screen, and used the forward and back pointing
triangles such as are used to indicate quoted text (illegal characters in a
message?)

Have edited the following bit to correct this:-

Sorry for delay in responding, and thanks for your reply.
As best I can answer the above queries:-

The only BIOS settings I could find that seemed relevant to your first
query are under Drive Configuration and are:-

Use Automatic mode [Enable] (alternate choice is Disable)
ATA/IDE mode [Enhanced] (alternate choice is Legacy)
S.M.A.R.T. [Enable] (alternate choice is Disable)

> SATA Port 0 ST380811AS - 80.0 GB (I think this is the system drive)
> SATA Port 2 ST380817AS - 80.0 GB (I think this is the Data drive)
> Primary Master HL -DT -ST DVDRAM -ATAPI
> Hard Disk pre-Delay [0] (choices are 0 thru 30)
>
Rest snipped - hope the correction makes sense.

John S

You can check the Event Log and the transfer mode using Computer Management: click the Start button, right-click on My Computer, select Manage.

To check the Event Log, expand Event Viewer in the tree on the left side and then select System. Look for any disk errors or warnings -- could indicate problems reading/writing/etc.

To check the transfer mode being used for the drive, click on Device Manager in the tree on the left side, expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers section. It should contain Primary and Secondary IDE Channel entries (check both). Right-click the entry, select Properties from the menu, select the Advanced Settings tab. Each channel can support two devices. Each device shows what the current transfer mode is. For hard drives it will usually be Ultra DMA Mode 2 or higher. If it reports a PIO Mode it's going to be running very slowly (Windows automatically reverts to PIO Mode if it detects too many transfer errors/problems).

The board you're using may only support SATA 1. Do you know if the 80GB drive (Port 0) has the jumper set to limit its speed (the other one appears to be SATA 1)? Have you tried using that on the new drive (if it has the jumper)? Also, if the board is only SATA 1 the cables might be also, especially if they came with the board.

On Wed, 6 Mar 2013 10:04:15 PST, TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:

> You can check the Event Log and the transfer mode using Computer Management: click the Start button, right-click on My Computer, select Manage.
>
> To check the Event Log, expand Event Viewer in the tree on the left side and then select System. Look for any disk errors or warnings -- could indicate problems reading/writing/etc.
>
> To check the transfer mode being used for the drive, click on Device Manager in the tree on the left side, expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers section. It should contain Primary and Secondary IDE Channel entries (check both). Right-click the entry, select Properties from the menu, select the Advanced Settings tab. Each channel can support two devices. Each device shows what the current transfer mode is. For hard drives it will usually be Ultra DMA Mode 2 or higher. If it reports a PIO Mode it's going to be running very slowly (Windows automatically reverts to PIO Mode if it detects too many transfer errors/problems).
>
> The board you're using may only support SATA 1. Do you know if the 80GB drive (Port 0) has the jumper set to limit its speed (the other one appears to be SATA 1)? Have you tried using that on the new drive (if it has the jumper)? Also, if the board is only SATA 1 the cables might be also, especially if they came with the board.

Hi PST Terabyte Suppport.

I just want to say a very big Thank You! for taking the trouble to assist,
as your comments have pointed me in the direction of a solution.

After some experiments, the 500GB HDD now seems to be working
satisfactorily.

In summary, what happened was:-

1) Checking the (system) event log showed three errors, each reading:-

"The Device \Device\Ide\IdePort0 did not respond within the timeout period"

2) Device manager showed one of the three primary channels (the one
connected to the 500 GB drive) with current transfer mode as PIO.

I then fitted a jumper to the drive to limit speed to 1.5 Gbits\sec,
deleted the partition, did a fresh restore and re-booted.

3) The timeout errors were no longer reported under event viewer, but the
poor performance was unchanged, and the drive still showed as PIO mode in
device manager.

At this stage, with no further ideas, I decided to experiment with settings
when restoring the image to the drive.
Instead of using the IFL defaults, I opted to use alignment for 2048 for
the restore.

On re-booting afterwards, I was very surprised at the huge difference in
behaviour of the drive.

It booted much faster and computer performance seemed completely normal to
me.

Device manager showed the drive was now operating in Ultra DMA Mode 5.

Again, many thanks for taking the trouble to help. It makes a huge
difference when you're told not only what to do, but also how to do it.

Regards,

John S