Maxtor DiamondMax+ 60 7200rpm slower than old 3.2gig Quantum??

[timelord Bateman]

I decided to post this as a new topic to get faster help

I have Windows 98SE and Windows 2000 SP1 and the mobo is Asus K7M.

I received today a Maxtor 40.9g 7200rpm HD and it is in PIO mode on both o/s's (transfers @ 4.1mb/s!! :| )
and to make things worse Win98SE got really screwed up once I checked the
DMA box in the options.
Now I've got secondary IDE disabled in Win98 for if it's enabled system
simply will not reach Win98.
For some very strange reason primary IDE controller is using Microsoft driver
but the secondary is using a VIA driver (dual fifo)... I can't remember how
exactly it reads in Win98 because that o/s is at the moment pretty much
a NO-GO ever since the DMA change.

I've been at this for FIVE hours now.

Should I already give up?
Geting a mighty pissed off here, never had any problems with
all the previous hd's and the very first Maxtor does all this.

Please!

 

[Edski]

It is not the hard drive that is the cause of your problems...it is the VIA chipset. Make absolutely sure that you have the latest updates.
I will never buy a mobo that has a VIA chipset.

 

[timelord Bateman]

Thanks for replying, though it did not exactly help me the way I was
expecting. You're probably right about VIA, but why do Quantum UDMA
drives work at the speed they're supposed to? I just don't get this.

As a Primary Master I have a 6.4gig Quantum Fireball and it's doin'
just fine running UDMA 33 mode, this Maxtor is doin' something else.
I've been screwing around with Windows98 IDE controller drivers so much
now that I'm quite sure I'm looking forward to a reinstall and why?
Because I changed one hard disk!!!! And not even the system disk,
but one used as a storage. This is major BS.

I will not take anymore of this sh8. This Maxtor DMax+60 will go back to the
store I ordered it from. At least my old and crappy 3.2gig 5400rpm
Quantum is functional (though hardly anymore) but it's also faster!!!!

 

[SonOfZeuz]

Theres probably nothing wrong with you hard drive, in fact the Maxtor is one of the fastest you can get. Get the latest VIA 4 in 1 drivers(4.29) HERE
Say "yes" to dma mode when asked.

 

[timelord Bateman]

Thanks.

I disabled that 'write verification' thing the drive was set to
as default and disabled the acoustic management thingy too plus
got Windows to show two functional IDE controllers, woohoooo!
Now the drive functions at 8.2mb/s write/read under win98,
which is a bit better but still is a lot lower than my 6.4gig
Quantum 5400rpm Fireball can do, then again the Fireball can use
DMA which the Maxtor cannot.

I'll try those 4.29's though I've got a really bad feeling about
saying 'yes' to DMA since this morning.

 

[timelord Bateman]

"

<< Theres probably nothing wrong with you hard drive... >>

&quot;

Does this mean that it doesn't matter which IDE drive (Maxtor/IBM/Seagate)
I use and still get these crappy results?
Is this an UDMA66 thing that K7M just cannot handle?

I bought the drive for games and storage since it was supposedly fast,
but I just don't know. If a slower drive is faster for me and the SCSI
drives I have are in a league completely of their own even though
one is 5400rpm and other 7200rpm. Shouldn't I at least get that 7200rpm
performance from the Maxtor as well or does the speed really not matter?

 

[knutp]

Have you checked how the drive is accessed in the bios? pio or udma mode? and where is it in the chaine? primary ide or secondary? is the drive alone on the primary or secondary?

 

[CapNjacK]

I would also check to see if the Hard drive has a utility for changing its UDMA mode. The IBMs do. I was having some trouble getting the ATA 100 b4 the new Via drivers, same prob I was using Win2k Pro and was getting only Pio 4 mode on my new drive. I used the utility to change to UDMA 66 and bang 2k showed me back on DMA mode.

 

[timelord Bateman]

The BIOS on K7M doesn't have any UDMA mode settings, only PIO and autodetect gives
it PIO4, I changed to PIO5, but that doesn't do anything I could see.
I only have two IDE drives and one is primary master, the other secondary master,
CD-ROMs and other drives are SCSI.

It seems also my primary master Quantum drive is these days running in PIO mode
under Win98SE, but now with VIA4.29 betas they're both UDMA under Win2000, so
that got sorted out. However I cannot use VIA 4.28 or 4.29 in Win98SE at all
because after installing them secondary IDE controller gets an exclamation mark
and is not functional, system hangs before windows and does not even show the
drive in device manager... go figure.

 

[Duvie]

Does your bios give you an option to set it to auto?

Also I am using the 4.28 drivers know in w98se...no probs.

I have a biostar mobo w/750amd t-bird...My 13.6 gig udma66 is detected correctly and with hdtach and sandra is benching right as advetised...also dma is checked.

I wonder if a reformat isn't in order do to all the tinkering may have made a mess in the registry...

Many who have had problems are told to use 4.24 via version or use the ms default drivers...Have you tried either one of these?

 

[timelord Bateman]

4.25 work otherwise fine, but no UDMA. Checking DMA for the drive means
system hanging at next boot. I currently have MS drivers but it's all the
same, 8mb/s transfers without DMA, with DMA enabled it's a no-go.
I've tried AUTO setting in the BIOS but it doesn't matter.

Strange how in Win2000pro the 4.29's corrected everything but Win98SE
nothing seems to help short of a reformat/reinstall. I am pretty happy
with the current situation however because at least I now have 32mb/s
transfers in Win2000pro and that's good enough for Photoshop scratch disk
and fast storage, the gaming will have to do with less speed until
the next VIA drivers incase the 4.24's fail too. I'll try the 4.24's
tomorrow perhaps.

Thanks.