Following the addition of a new hard drive (one that has been giving me
trouble), my system performance deteriorated. I went to Device Manager
and ran a speed test on my IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

Drive #1 (boot drive; 160GB) has its transfer mode automatically set to
Serial ATA DMA. Results of the speed test: theoretical limit is 150.0,
burst speed 56.5, sustained speed 37.1.

Drive #2 (the new, troublesome drive; 200GB) is also a serial ATA
drive, but it has had its transfer mode automatically re-set to PIO.
Results of the speed test: theoretical limit is 16.0, burst speed 2.7,
sustained speed of 2.7. There is a note that the transfer mode has been
downgraded due to
"excessive transfer errors to this device."

Drive #3 (old drive; 30GB) is a parallel ATA drive. Transfer mode is
set to Ultra DMA 6 - Ultra 133. Results of the speed test: theoretical
limit is 133.3, burst speed 75.2, sustained speed 15.5.

I reformatted Drive #2 and that didn't improve things at all.

Any help welcome and appreciated.

Drive read errors may be due to physical defects on the drive. See if there are any diagnostic
utilities available from the manufacturer to test it.
--
Dave Vair
CNE, CNA, MCP, A+, N+

"Princess Platypus" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Following the addition of a new hard drive (one that has been giving me
> trouble), my system performance deteriorated. I went to Device Manager
> and ran a speed test on my IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.
>
> Drive #1 (boot drive; 160GB) has its transfer mode automatically set to
> Serial ATA DMA. Results of the speed test: theoretical limit is 150.0,
> burst speed 56.5, sustained speed 37.1.
>
> Drive #2 (the new, troublesome drive; 200GB) is also a serial ATA
> drive, but it has had its transfer mode automatically re-set to PIO.
> Results of the speed test: theoretical limit is 16.0, burst speed 2.7,
> sustained speed of 2.7. There is a note that the transfer mode has been
> downgraded due to
> "excessive transfer errors to this device."
>
> Drive #3 (old drive; 30GB) is a parallel ATA drive. Transfer mode is
> set to Ultra DMA 6 - Ultra 133. Results of the speed test: theoretical
> limit is 133.3, burst speed 75.2, sustained speed 15.5.
>
> I reformatted Drive #2 and that didn't improve things at all.
>
> Any help welcome and appreciated.
>

Thank you for your reply. I ran the manufacturer's diagnostics and the drive
passed all of them.

I suspect that one of the things (if not the thing) that caused my computer
to tell me the drive had excessive transfer errors was because I aborted two
back-up files that I was writing to the drive (they were huge and were going
to take days).

Would successfully completing several copies to the drive help at all?

Any other ideas?

"David Vair" wrote:

> Drive read errors may be due to physical defects on the drive. See if there are any diagnostic
> utilities available from the manufacturer to test it.
> --
> Dave Vair
> CNE, CNA, MCP, A+, N+
>
> "Princess Platypus" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> > Following the addition of a new hard drive (one that has been giving me
> > trouble), my system performance deteriorated. I went to Device Manager
> > and ran a speed test on my IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.
> >
> > Drive #1 (boot drive; 160GB) has its transfer mode automatically set to
> > Serial ATA DMA. Results of the speed test: theoretical limit is 150.0,
> > burst speed 56.5, sustained speed 37.1.
> >
> > Drive #2 (the new, troublesome drive; 200GB) is also a serial ATA
> > drive, but it has had its transfer mode automatically re-set to PIO.
> > Results of the speed test: theoretical limit is 16.0, burst speed 2.7,
> > sustained speed of 2.7. There is a note that the transfer mode has been
> > downgraded due to
> > "excessive transfer errors to this device."
> >
> > Drive #3 (old drive; 30GB) is a parallel ATA drive. Transfer mode is
> > set to Ultra DMA 6 - Ultra 133. Results of the speed test: theoretical
> > limit is 133.3, burst speed 75.2, sustained speed 15.5.
> >
> > I reformatted Drive #2 and that didn't improve things at all.
> >
> > Any help welcome and appreciated.
> >
>
>
>