OK. So after spending hours over the last couple of months trying to get this drive to work, I’m at wits end.
I’ve tried partitioning and formatting within Windows…transfer is slow.
One of the WD FAQs states to add a jumper on pins 7/8. Then partition and format within Windows…transfer is slow.
I ran the WD align utility. It states the drive is already properly aligned and doesn’t do anything.
I’ve deleted and recreated the partition using the Acronis Ture Image WD utility, formatted with the same utility…transfer is still slow.
Bottom line, for me, this drive does NOT work in XP. Unless you don’t mind spending 30 minutes transferring a 600MB file onto a SATA drive. USB 1 is night and day faster than that.
OK. So I verified the jumper is still off. Using Disk Management I deleted the partition, and then created a new single partition and formatted. Speed is stil slow (same as noted above in the HDTune test).
The flat 2MB/s transfer rate suggests that your drive may be running in PIO mode. Is your SATA controller configured in BIOS for compatibility mode or legacy IDE mode? How does your drive and SATA controller appear in Device Manager?
The scatter of data points for HD Tune’s access time graph would suggest that the drive is experiencing many read retries. Perhaps these errors are responsible for the drive’s performance downgrade from DMA to PIO?
Do you see any UDMA CRC errors in HD Tune’s SMART report?
The drive is attached to a Thermaltake BlacX via an eSATA port. The controller is configured for IDE mode. If I swap the WD drive from my Seagate, it works just fine. HDtune on the Seagate is in the 120MB range. Swapping back to the WD, speeds are back to 2MB. The external controller doesn’t list the mode, but if it is changing, it’s caused by the drive and it’s not a configuration or controller issue.
No. But as I stated earlier, the controller that it’s connected to doesn’t list the drive or connection speed. The controller in question shows up as a “SCSI” controller.
In any case, it’s irrelevant. If I swap HDD’s it works fine, when I swap back it doesn’t. In my experience, once a controller defaults to PIO mode, you have to manually set it back. Even if it is resetting itself somehow for the 2nd drive, it would then seem to be defaluting to PIO mode during bootup. Which would indicate a drive issue. In my many years of computer use, I’ve not had a HDD default to PIO, even when they are faulty. CD and DVD drives when reading bad discs, but not HDD.
If booting into Windows and immediately testing the drive, it’s at 2MB, and resetting all of the channels and immediately testing the drive it’s at 2MB…I don’t see how there is anything I can do to get the drive to work (assuming it is defaulting to PIO mode).
I don’t use XP these days , but I seem to remember that going into ‘Device Manager’ and deleting (un-installing?) all the controllers and re-booting would fix some DMA/PIO problems.
On a re-boot of course XP would install all the controllers again at the correct DMA setting … worth trying anyway! … if you haven’t already of course!
I tried the deletion method already as well as the link that was provided above. My point being, that as soon as Windows boots, the drive is slow. And I think we are sidetracked on the PIO issue.
