IDE, PIO and SATA

[Squeezy99]

Hi,
I have just installed XP x64 on my new hardwareb and am running 2 SATA
connected drives in IDE mode. One drive seems very slow and I noticed it is
now in PIO mode. I read all about KB817472 and would like to know if the
fix on offer actually cures this or is there more to the problem as it
appears to have started many years ago.
I tried the workaround and this was good for 2 boots but after it returned
to PIO.

Regards,
David

 

[JS]

Your drive may be on it's way to the graveyard.
Download and run the drive manufactures diagnostic utilities.

Disk Diagnostic Utilities from:
Western Digital's Data LifeGuard Diagnostics
http://support.wdc.com/download/?cxml=n&pid=999&swid=3
Seagate's SeaTools
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools
Maxtor (Now Seagate SeaTools)
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=720bd20cacdec010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD
Fujitsu's Utilities
http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/storage/hdd/support/utilities.html
Samsung's Disk manager software
http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/shdiag.htm
Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test software

Hard Disk S.M.A.R.T. Status Software
Here are two utilities that are worth looking into if you want more info
about S.M.A.R.T.
SpeedFan: http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php
The SMART tab displays current smart info on the drive you select and at
your option provides an on-line analysis of the drive.

HD Tune:
HD Tune, provides drive info and has an option to test your drive.
For S.M.A.R.T. status click on the 'Health' tab.
http://www.hdtune.com/

 

[Squeezy99]

Great thanks,
my drive is well within warranty.

Regards,
David

 

[JS]

You're welcome.

Let us know what the diagnostics
report as to the overall health of the drive.

 

[Bob I]

Also make sure you have undamaged data cables and they are securely
seated.

 

[Squeezy99]

Hi
I am ok as I am coverd by the disk warranty.
Diags all say disk is failing,

How do you change an xp system from IDE to RAID other then the bios settings
please

regards
David

 

[JS]

Do you want to run XP in a RAID configuration?

 

[Squeezy99]

Hi,
I have installed my XP64 using a SATA disc as IDE. Someone said "why run as
IDE when RAID is a faster option."
I had raid on an old PC but I do not want to run more than 1 disc at the
moment. I understand that the RAID setting can run just one disc but will
give me the AHCI plus more.
Is this correct?

I installed a new PC for a friend recently and that came with just one SATA
disc set up as RAID in Bios with Vista but I also installed XP.


Regard
david

 

[Bob I]

There is no speed advantage with a single drive raid. And there is
increased failure opportunity for a RAID 0 setup.

EXCERPT from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

RAID 0 (striped disks) distributes data across several disks in a way
that gives improved speed and no lost capacity, but all data on all
disks will be lost if any one disk fails. Although such an array has no
actual redundancy, it is customary to call it RAID 0.

 

[JS]

You can run in ACHI mode without being RAID enabled.
For more info see: "Advanced Host Controller Interface"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface

On the motherboards that I have used enabling RAID
and then only attaching one drive does not work or causes
problems. I repaired a Dell just the other day and it only
had one drive but had RAID enabled and it would not
ever complete a boot until RAID was turned off.

As for speed I don't run RAID on home computers.
RAID 0 or RAID 1 are two drive configurations that
offer little benefit for the average user and if a drive starts
to fail you could be in big trouble.

If I did decided to use RAID it would be RAID 5
or RAID 50 which are more typical of Server configurations.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

If you are after improved performance use 2 separate
SATA drives "not configured as RAID". Install Windows on
the first (C drive. On the second drive create a small (10 GB)
primary partition (this now becomes the D: drive) and use it for relocating
the pagefile and temp files (%TEMP%) to this partition. Then use the
remaining space on the second drive to create one "Extended" partition
with at least two logic drives.The size of the first logical drive (E
should not
exceed 50% of the remaining space. Use this partition (E when installing
applications by choosing the "Custom" option during the application's
install process and specify the install path to E: (Example E:\MyAppName\)

The last partition on the second drive can be used for whatever you decide.

 

[Squeezy99]

Hi, thanks for all info.
I had raid 0 on an old Abit machine but learnt my lesson when it failed.
The reason I ask about a single disk running in Raid mode is my friend
recently bought a new HP from a superstore running Vista. When I went to
install his old XP I found it was running in Raid mode so I had to do the F6
trick. All worked in the end but was good fun.

There are many reports on the net that say ACHI is often slower than IDE .
Do you find ACHI is faster or better?

Many thanks,
David

 

[JS]

I have not run a bench marks but
now that you have raised the question
about which move is fast I'll put it on
my list of this to do.