2 HD (ATA133 & ATA100): Very slow file copying in one direction?

[Gargamel]

Hi everybody,

Can you help me ?

My old Dell Optiplex GX1 was upgraded with a Celeron 1.4 (OK) and an ATA133
ITE card, used as controller, without the RAID function (OK).

2 HD Hitachi: an old 120 Go (HD1, ATA100, as C + a new 250 Go (HD2,
ATA133, partitionned as D: + E, well recognized; all features OK for each
HD in Everest, for instance.

The system works well, except a 'little' problem:
- I can copy a large file (such as a 700 Mo video AVI) from C: to D: or E:
quickly;
- but if I try to copy such a file from D: or E: to C:, the system becomes
very very slow (id. for deleting a large file in D: or E:, but no problem in
C.

The two HD are connected to the ATA133 card, each of them as Master on
Primary (HD1) and Secondary (HD2) ports. I tried to connect them as Master +
Slave on Primary port only; the system runs, but my 'little' problem is the
same...

I tried, but couldn't 'downgrade' the ATA133HD to ATA100 (using the Hitachi
'Features Tool' dskt).

Thank you for any help !

 

[Guest]

ATA133 only runs at that speed with a maxtor hd.Youre controller might get
burst speeds of 133 if the right hd(s) were installed,as is try connecting
them
to youre MB IDE connections....

 

[Yves Leclerc]

Are the TWO hard drive connected pm the very same ATA cable? If yes, you need
to know that:

1) ATA can only do only function (read / write) at a time. It need to stop
all the read before it can start any writes and vice versa.

2) If you do not use an 80 wire/40 pin ATA (IDE) cable, you do not get these
high speeds (less than ATA100)

3) The higher speed drive will take on the lower speed of the ATA 100 hard
drive.

 

[Gargamel]

I had today a solution, 'forcing' ATA100 for the new drive ATA133.

The Hitachi 'Feature Tool' couldn't modify the default setting (ATA133)
because the drive was connected to a Ite PCI card (ATA133 controller).- The
Feature Tool working in DOS, I tried connecting that new drive (alone) to
the IDE1 port of my old motherboard, using a ATA33 cable -> Bingo ! The
drive was configured in ATA100 by Feature Tool without a problem.

Re-connected to the Ite card with 80wire cables, the two drives are now
working in ATA100, OK, and as a test I copy a 700M AVI file from one to the
other (or from the other to the one) in 28 to 30 sec.- HDTune shows a very
good improvement.

Thank you for your attention. Maybe that will help another !