Powerful machine - hard drive has started being REALLY slow

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jb7

jb7

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specs: Intel i7 920 @ 3.6ghz
6gb ddr3 @1450mhz
Asus p6t deluxe v2
ATI 5850
OS: Windows 7 ultimate

My main OS hard drive is a Samsung F3 HD103SJ 1tb 7200rpm, connected via Sata 2. I have two other hard drives connected via sata 2, and three connected via USB, however I doubt these are causing the problem.

Performance has always been fast, and I usually have about 600gb free of my OS hard drive. Recently, I have been moving some big files to some folders that I created on my desktop, this reduced the free space to about 300gb free. At first I didn't notice a problem, however recently I have noticed that whilst transferring files over to the desktop folders, the whole computer's performance is very sluggish (e.g when trying to web browse.)

As an example, I copied about 6gb of files from C:/documents to a folder on my desktop, and the transfer rate was.... 15mb/s. This is awful considering I am copying files to the same drive, and the drive is internally connected via sata2. I can barely web browse as it keeps stuttering...what could be causing this slowdown? I have ran defraggler, it first said 32% fragmented but after running it (took hours and hours) it was 1% fragmented. Yet it's still slow, any ideas? Could it be because I am now storing large files in the folders on my desktop? or maybe something else?

edit: I have just tried to run "benchmark" on "HD Tune Pro" - for the read test I get "read error! test aborted" and for the write test it says "writing is disabled. To enable writing please remove all partitions " I rebooted but get the same message

"file benchmark" results http://oi52.tinypic.com/29zyh3d.jpg


thanks
 
The most likely problem is that the drive is failing, and the errors have dropped it into PIO mode.
Open up device manager, then IDE ATA/Atapi controllers, then have a look around the properties of the ATA channels, if you go to the advanced settings tab you should be able to force the drive back into UDMA Mode 5 (make sure the 'use DMA' box is checked)

This is only a temporary fix though, as errors will drop the drive back into PIO again shortly. Get your data backed up.
 
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