Paralyzed disk access

[skyeclad]

Today I found my PC in an unusual state. I left it on the night before and when to log onto the internet when I noticed that the monitor was black and I figured the PC must be in sleep mode. The mouse wouldn't wake it up so I figured I'd reset the PC.

When the pc rebooted the BIOS wouldn't recognize the Master HDD. Unfortunately, this has happened before althought I thought this was fixed since I flashed the BIOS back to an older version.

Anyway, after a few restarts the bios finally detected the primary HDD and I booted to windows but very slowly. It seems the overall disk access is almost paralyzed. The PC overall isn't slowed by anything, most of the CPU time is idle but the HDD is only accessing intermittently and even though all I want to do is get a word document off the HDD I can't seem to attach a file to an email and send it.

What could be causing the HDD slowdown, problems with the IDE driver? I've tried to execute a system restore but it doesn't finish the operation. Is there anything I can try to determine the root cause of the problem when I get no error messages?

Athlon 3200+
Asus A8n-E
1 Gig Ram
2 HDD's
2 DVD's
Win XP SP2

 

[skyeclad]

I managed to get a file attached and sent to my email address so a major crisis is averted but I still need to figure out a way to fix the system.

I can't tell if the problem is with the BIOS, WINXP or is a hardware issue. The basic problem is that while I get no error messages, the HDD seems to spin intermittently when I request something load. It takes 10X longer to run anything and yet nothing seems to be running in the background taking up cycles or anything. My guess is that maybe the IDE drivers are messed up. Currently, there are 3 primaries and 3 secondaries in the device manager. I don't recall if I had three of each before and they look like generic drivers, I don't remember if they should be nvidia IDE drivers. Any thoughts?

 

[TXJustin]

Is the HD making any new noises? Or louder than normal? It may be going out. I'd also check the DMA settings. I had a machine that for some reason switched to PIO mode instead of DMA -- despite "Use DMA if available" being the selected option. I had to remove the device in device manager. Reboot, and everything was back to normal.

 

[birdpup]

As TXJustin mentioned, check your hard drive properties to ensure it is not in PIO mode.
(right-click My Computer -> Propertied -> Hardware tab -> Device Manager button -> Disk Drives, then select the properties of your disk drive)

It sounds as if your hard drive is malfunctioning. I recommend obtaining the diagnostic utility from the hard drive manufacturer's website and running the utility to test the current status of your hard drive. If the status is not perfectly normal, then you will need to find a method of removing your data files to another hard drive very quickly. If the drive's status is normal, then I am not sure what has happened to cause these problems.

 

[skyeclad]

One of the drives on the Primary IDE channel seems to be in PIO mode, the other is in Ultra DMA 4. I also notice that there are 3 entries for Primary IDE, 3 for Secondary IDE and 3 for Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE controller. Shouldn't there be one each and shouldn't it be the Nvidia driver not the standard? Just wondering.

Anyhow, the choice for IDE is DMA if available. I'm going to remove the driver and reboot to see if anything changes.

Btw, for some reason, right this minute, it's not excrutiatingly slow. Don't know why.

 

[skyeclad]

No bad HDD sounds. I uninstalled the IDE drivers and when it reinstalled it reverted back to Ultra DMA 5 and Ultra DMA 4 as it should. However, the problem persists.

The best way I can describe it is when I try to execute a program, I'm able to load it but when I try to interact with the program the PC slows almost to a stop. The HDD light goes on and off intermittently but nothing much happens for a long time. Then the program executes the function and I have about 15 seconds of interaction before it happens again.

I'm going to try to re-load the nforce drivers to see if that helps. I was never able to finish reverting to a previous restore point because the PC takes so long to load the data, the application eventually hangs or crashes to a BSOD.

I don't get this. Obviously there's some kind of HDD component to this problem because of the PIO mode setting but now that that's fixed, I would think everything would be ok. Any thoughts?

 

[birdpup]

You have not yet mentioned testing the drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic utility. Doing this may help.

 

[skyeclad]

Well I installed the Nvidia drivers and they replaced the multiple IDE devices. Now I have two Nfrorce ADMA controllers that don't seem to be in use and a parallel ATA controller with a primary that contains both HDD's, one on DMA5 and the other DMA4. The secondary houses two DVD's running on DMA2.

Are things better? Not at all. The system seems to be fine until just after the windows welcome sound. Then a two start-up apps seem to load and then things slow to a crawl. The HDD comes on intermittently and what should be a 3 min. start-up turns into a 10 -15 minute ordeal.


Again, no error messages, no conflicts just a slow HDD that seems to stop accessing every few seconds. No odd noises either.

I'll see if I can't use a HDD diagnostic tool like you said. The hard part is getting the system to get and run the tool within my lifetime.

 

[skyeclad]

Well, I'm running the WD HDD diagnostic now. So far, I got an error on the SMART monitoring. The HD failed the raw read test. No other failures. Then I ran a quick test and it failed for unknown reasons. I'm running the extended test now. It estimates that it will take 4 hours.

Just so I know, is this type of problem software repairable or do I have to start moving off files onto the back-up drive and get ready to reinstall WinXP and a brand new HD? To that I have to say, crap, that's an awful lot of small utilities, applications and games that need to be reinstalled! Not to mention all the e-mail and settings...oh the headache this will be!

I'm getting ahead of myself now but I suppose the upside is that I'll gain some speed, I haven't done a fresh install since, well, Windows 98. Yeah, I know, it's overdue.

 

[birdpup]

I just thought of something. perform a complete scan of your system for viruses and spyware. I think you will find something that should not be there and is causing your problem.
Consolidated Security Thread
The FlyingPenguin's pages include at least two pages concerning spyware.

We should have known better with your first line.

Originally posted by: skyeclad
Today I found my PC in an unusual state.