Spastic transfer of large files

[caddmannq]

I have a WinXP Pro PC with a 10GB IDE HDD and a 250GB IDE HDD, which are on the same channel, the 10GB being the master & 250GB the slave. The 10GB is the boot drive.

When I copy or move files from one to the other, files of around 1~2MB or less typically complete in one or two seconds. Larger files, however will Instantly spike to the max transfer speed, then fall off to about 1% or 2%. They will bobble around there for maybe a minute, then spike to 100% again, fall off, and repeat this behavior over and over until the file is eventually transfered or I give up.

I'm using Anvir Task Manager to monitor this behavior, and it has always been trouble free for me.

Defragging both drives has not helped.

This machine has been fine for years & just started doing this in the last month.

The 10GB drive is about 85% full, the 250 is half full.

[RicheemxX]

Can't say forsure but I'd say its likely due to the lack of cache or slow speeds on the smaller driver. I can say you are really slowing down your system by using an old slower drive like the 10gb as a boot drive as opposed to a newer, faster 250gb drive.

[caddmannq]

I agree in theory, except that the computer was running fine before this started.

I'm starting to suspect that the 10GB drive is going bad, but it passes a chkdisk.

Do you think maybe running fdisk/ MBR might help? It seems to boot about the same speed it always has though.

[Steve R Jones]

If the machine boots and you can access both drives there isn't a need to fix the MBR.

[caddmannq]

OK, now it's developed the habit of not detecting the boot drive when I start it.

I will re-start the machine and the second time it will boot OK.

This happens if the motherboard is cold (has been unplugged from the AC) or warmed up (has been plugged in all day but not started.)

Sometimes this used to happen when starting the machine on very cold mornings (room temps near 50F, but now it happens at temps of 75~80F

[caddmannq]

<Edit> it's not detecting either IDE HDD when I boot it the first time.

[osprey4]

Did you run chkdsk or any other diagnostic program?

[no1_vern]

Youve made sure the power and IDE cables are firmly inserted-both ends?? Also, make sure the jumper is still firmly in contact with its posts. Have you tried replacing the cables(power, IDE) and remove/replace the jumper?

[caddmannq]

I checked the cables before, but didn't check jumpers. Nobody's touched this machine except me though.

HOWEVER...

Both disks had previously passed a chkdsk but I ran it again aganst the 250. It passed the first two parts & then said I had freespace marked as allocated. Then it attempted to fix the master file table. I let it run all night but it never left that screen and no indication of progress was shown either. In the morning I just shut it all down & rebooted & will now re-run chkdsk to see what happens.

[caddmannq]

Well no joy. The MFT is hosed & chkdsk won't fix it.

So should I format it, fdisk it & format, or low-levl format?

(And how long should a 250GB low-level format take on a 1.5GHZ machine?)

I hope it's not toast.

[caddmannq]

OK, I think I know what's going on now. The capacitors on the IDE controller section seem to be shot. There's some corroded goop on the tops of them. I didn't notice it until I decided to change the IDE cable again.

[no1_vern]

Bad caps strike again. There are a couple of lawsuits going around about the bad caps in the computers several years ago. Dell is one of them, I dont know if you have a Dell, but check out if you might be able to receive some compensation from your computer maker.

[caddmannq]

I built this one from scratch almost 10 years ago, and it's been reasonably faithful all these years. I have more modern machines, but this one is my donkey engine.

The MB is an Epox 8kha+, and I will be replacing it tomorrow with another similar one I have in the boneyard at work. I think it's an MSI, but I don't recall off hand.

My first Pentium PC was a Dell, and it was my last Dell ever for good reason.

[caddmannq]

Just an update, & thanks to Richee, Steve, Osprey & Vern.

I ended up with the conclusion that both of my hard drives and my DVD burner had gone defective. The motherboard was working, in spite of several leaking capacitors, but I retired it with honors. I also retired my aging Seagate Baracuda SCSI HDD, which had run daily for 15 years without a flaw. It was the last of three Seagates from a RAID server at work, and the other ones all died over 10 years ago. Sometimes you get a real jewel.

I replaced the motherboard with a nice used MSI KT3-Ultra, and used the 1.7Ghz CPU which was already in it. I bought a new WD 500 GB HDD for the root drive. I was gonna buy a new DVD burner but they were out of stock. I installed 2 new 1GB sticks of Kingston DDR400 (This is actually only a DDR333 MoBo) and it works great.

I saved the immortal Enermax power supply, 2 other IDE HDD's, & the Kingston network card. I'm still running the GeForce 3 Titanium500 video card, which needed a new fan but was otherwise perfect. All this stuff has run perfect for over 10 years now.

A fresh install of WinXP Pro, and now she's running better than ever, with a faster board, faster HDD, more & faster memory, & a faster CPU. It's no up-to-date gamer, but I use this machine mainly for mundane tasks like file storage, photo editing, and web browsing, and for all that I'm a happy camper.

Best wishes,
Cadd.

[quickoldcar]

I also retired my aging Seagate Baracuda SCSI HDD, which had run daily for 15 years without a flaw. It was the last of three Seagates from a RAID server at work, and the other ones all died over 10 years ago. Sometimes you get a real jewel.

Your not kidding, I got a seagate barracuda 20gig scsi from when they first came out, ran it hard and long for servers, is still like the day I bought it.