Serious Hard Disk Problem.

[Jale]

Ooookay, where to start?

Recently, I bought a 250 GB Western Digital disk, installed Windows on it and everything is OK there. The problem is, whenever I want to transfer files from one disk to another, my PC starts to act very slow and the transfer time increases insanely. Whenever I want to transfer about 50 GB of data, it would normally take up to 20 minutes, but it takes more than 200 minutes instead!!!

I check the IDE channels in device manager and I find that it switched back to PIO mode. Doing a little research, my drive is UDMA mode 6 cappable (though Windows supports it up to UDMA mode 5 because of my Intel chipset, but that's not the case). With UDMA mode 5, transfer rate should be about 100 MB/s. In PIO mode, it goes at 4 MB/s!!! (that explains the 200 minutes remaining thing)

Also, I checked the event viewer and I get about six or seven continuous errors like this:

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\D
Error type: Disk
ID: 11

Followed by:

A parity error was detected on \Device\Ide\IdePort2
Error type: Atapi
ID: 5

SYMPTONS:

• Very slow transfer rates.
• Momentaneous hang ups when pasting copied files (mouse displays this icon for about a minute or two before transfer begins).
• Hang ups while gaming (takes forever to load a map or level and, in some cases, computer crashes in "Loading..." screen).
• Same symptons mentioned above in Windows Vista SP1, but followed by a Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) regarding hard disk problem.

WHAT I HAVE ALREADY TRIED (IN PARTICULAR ORDER):

• Checking disk for bad sectors using HDD Regenerator: Found none. Disk is fine. Both disks.
• Checking disk for bad sectors using CHKDSK /F/R/X command: Same result as above.
• Swapping SATA cables (both power and data): The problem persists.
• Using direct from PSU SATA power connector instead of Molex to SATA adapter: No luck.
• New SATA power and data cables: Nuh huh.
• Running memtest86+ to check memory errors: After 6 hours of multipass scan, it didn't show any errors, so memory is totally fine.
• Ran antivirus and antispyware software: It detected some false positives due to cracks and keygens, but other than that, no viruses found. And not to mention it took hours to scan due to the slow 4 MB/s.
• Format and reinstall Windows (quick): The problem persists!
• Low level format and reinstall Windows: Aaaagh!!! Still persists!
• Running Western Digital diagnosis tools: It found... nothing. The disk is OK.
• Replace hard disk: As I said, the disk is new so I had to get it replaced due to warranty. And for testing purposes, I got another one of the same brand and cappacity (WD 250 GB). And to my surprise... THE PROBLEM STILL PERSISTS!!!

So that leaves me without any choice, making me think that the disk itself is fine... Just one more thing to do: Replace hard drive with another brand (sucks today is sunday because the store is not open).

I say so because my other drive is a Samsung 250 GB and I have never had problems with it. And before the store changed my disk, they tested it for a whole day and they haven't found anything strange and the transfer rate was OK. My conclusion is that my motherboard/IDE controller doesn't like WD disks.

COMPUTER SPECS:

• Windows XP SP3/Windows Vista SP1.
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40 GHz CPU.
• 3 GB of RAM DDR2 (1x 2 GB + 1x 1 GB).
• WD 250 GB HDD for Windows.
• Samsung 250 GB HDD for personal data.
• Biostar G31-M7 TE (Intel G31 chipset).
• XFX GeForce 8600 GT 512 MB video card.

Any suggestions?

[onewecallgod]

Those errors from event viewer indicate a dying drive, but it's unlikely you have two dead 250GBs. Have you tried running diagnostics from a different computer?

[Jale]

Not at home. My PC is the only SATA compatible one.

The guys at tech support ran it on an Intel 945 board without problems. Looks like it's a controller issue with WD disks.

[ulaoulao]

Looks like it's a controller issue with WD disks.

I would agree, is S.M.A.R.T on? It may give you some good info. Are the sata drivers up to date and installed. Also in some strange cases windows messes up its irq sharing. In those cases you can sometimes force it to change in bios putting the ide on another. If your feeling ambitious and have not yet tried this, take the computer down to the bare minimum. CPU, one stick of ram, vga. See if it helps, may give a clue.

[Jale]

S.M.A.R.T. reported the disk is good.
SATA drivers are up to date.

Anyway, I exchanged it with a Maxtor disk and works flawlessly.

[khelben1979]

What about SpinRite?

[Zulkifli Tanjung]

Try with MHDD or Victoria