windows explorer slow with specific folder on harddisk

[Gerard Verhoef]

I have a winxp pro system with two harddisks. One 200G, divided in C:, D:
and F: partitions and a 40G with just one H: partition. All regular IDE, all
NTFS.

I use the 2nd harddisk (H: partition) mainly for storing downloads. One
folder is for 22G full and there is still 10 G left on this partition.

Normally it takes a couple of seconds for explorer to open any folder on any
harddisk. Only the 22G folder in the H: partition is much slower. Opening
for the first time in a session can take up to 5 minutes. During that time
explorer uses 97 - 100 % of the cpu cycles and all other apps come to a
complete halt.

I did use a large folder on this partition before and never encountered such
drastic performance problems. I defragged and checked for errors using the
windows tools on the properties tab of this drive.
The 22G folder is the only one with this problem.

Any advice is much appreciated.

Gerard

 

[R. McCarty]

What is the content inside the partition ? Multimedia

 

[Gerard Verhoef]

What is the content inside the partition ? Multimedia

Thanks!
Miscellaneous really. Some zip or rar archives, some folders containing
mostly multimedia. About two hundred entries in total. One third being
folders, one third other files. Hardly any multimedia stored as direct
files, most in the mentioned sub folders.

I usually (almost always) have the details fileview. Just might turn that
off and use only listview

Gerard

 

[Rock]

I have a winxp pro system with two harddisks. One 200G, divided in C:, D:
and F: partitions and a 40G with just one H: partition. All regular IDE, all
NTFS.

I use the 2nd harddisk (H: partition) mainly for storing downloads. One
folder is for 22G full and there is still 10 G left on this partition.

Normally it takes a couple of seconds for explorer to open any folder on any
harddisk. Only the 22G folder in the H: partition is much slower. Opening
for the first time in a session can take up to 5 minutes. During that time
explorer uses 97 - 100 % of the cpu cycles and all other apps come to a
complete halt.

I did use a large folder on this partition before and never encountered such
drastic performance problems. I defragged and checked for errors using the
windows tools on the properties tab of this drive.
The 22G folder is the only one with this problem.

Any advice is much appreciated.

Gerard

See if running the edit on Kelly's site helps:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm
Line 157: Prevent Automatic Folder and Icon Refresh

See the top of the page for info on running the edit.

 

[gnarwhal]

You may want to run chkdsk h: /f from the command prompt, unmounting
the drive if neccesary. If this finds errors you should run the
manufacturers diagnostic boot-disk on the drive to check for surface
errors as well, this will tell you if the drive needs to be replaced.

 

[Gerard Verhoef]

See if running the edit on Kelly's site helps:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm
Line 157: Prevent Automatic Folder and Icon Refresh

See the top of the page for info on running the edit.

Thanks for your reply. Its much appreciated, but if I use this registry
tweak I expect that it turns off all automatic folder and icon refreshes,
and there is only one folder that is causing trouble. Normally I like the
automatic refreshes, it provides some safety when copying and moving files
and folders. So I'm a bit reluctant in trying this solution. Do I understand
your suggestion correct?

Thanks again for your effort and please take no offence in my being a bit
stubborn

Gerard

 

[Gerard Verhoef]

You may want to run chkdsk h: /f from the command prompt, unmounting
the drive if neccesary. If this finds errors you should run the
manufacturers diagnostic boot-disk on the drive to check for surface
errors as well, this will tell you if the drive needs to be replaced.

Is that checkdisk different from the tool I used in the windows environment?
I could and indeed only act directly after booting, even before the whole
windows was started. It you set this tool, it tells you that is will act the
next time you boot your system.
Is the checkdisk /if likely to find other failures that the check from
within windows can't find?

Gonna try it tonight anyway. You never know.

Thanks

 

[gnarwhal]

chkdsk from the command prompt allows you to run without rebooting and
it gives you status messages right away. If you run from the gui you
need to reboot and you also need to looking Event Viewer to see any
errors that occurred. If you haven't looked at the messages from your
previous error checks you should do that as well to see if you need to
run a hardware diagnostic.

 

[Gerard Verhoef]

chkdsk from the command prompt allows you to run without rebooting and
it gives you status messages right away. If you run from the gui you
need to reboot and you also need to looking Event Viewer to see any
errors that occurred. If you haven't looked at the messages from your
previous error checks you should do that as well to see if you need to
run a hardware diagnostic.

Good old command prompt: easier than the gui version that needs a reboot.
Thanks for the suggestion.

One thing I was surprised of: the command prompt version took less then a
minute to complete. Did three stages: verifying files, verifying indexes and
verifying security descriptors.
All without any errors. Zero bad sectors as well. How can it check that so
quickly (unless it simply used the earlier results from the gui version)?

 

[gnarwhal]

It's not a very big drive for one, secondly /f only checks file
structure, not free space, thirdly chkdsk, AFAIK, does not check the
surface of the drive, at least not with the /f option. Your best bet to
look for bad sectors is to use the manufacturers hard drive diagnostics
tool, which I suggest you do at some point.