Secondary SATA Drive Very Slow!

[oHUTCHYo]

Hi Guys,

Im running a 160GB Seagate Barracuda as a primary and a 80GB Western Digital Caviar as a secondary backup drive. Both SATA2.

If Im transferring data to and from the secondary drive Im getting very bad freezes, even the mouse pointer freezes. On burning a music CD from files on the secondary drive I had 192 buffer under-run protection messages.

I previously had 2 IDE drives and they were very smooth when transferring between each other.

What do you suggest I look at? Is it a BIOS setting I need to change? Have I put the wrong cables somewhere when I installed the secondary?

Its driving me mad!

Merry Christmas!

 

[rpstewart]

Sounds like the 80Gb drive could be running in PIO mode. Take a look in Device Manager and find the appropriate SATA controller entry under "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers". The exact details vary from driver to driver but normally the properties sheet will tell you what the current transfer mode is.

Have a look and then post back and I'll see what can be done to sort this.

 

[oHUTCHYo]

You were exactly right! It was running in PIO but DMA was not selectable. I opened the case, theres 2 blocks of 2 SATA connectors (4 in total). I placed both of the cables on the same block instead of separates this time.

My fault for being a SATA noob, hehe.

Thanks again mate, Merry Christmas!