Magical Hard Drive!

nicky9499 · 24-06-2008, 05:09 PM

One day or another, all of us face the same problem of running out of disk space, then people like me will procrastinate or delete lots of junk I never realized exist or ten of the same file. This worked really well until a few days ago, when the available space dropped from 1GB to 200MB.

I've checked the page file, the settings have always been the way they are (both values 2000) and have never gave me any problems. So it's not the page file. By yesterday, it had officially reached a stage of chronic retardness.

I moved the drive to another rig and I'm copying everything out should anything go wrong. But since it works great on this computer, does this suggest something wrong with the other one? I only have another slave with nothing but music on it, and that has never given me problems as well. What could be the cause of it? The ram? The 2 extra fans? The two DVD burners? Yes, it's a 3-year old motherboard, but even so, I've never heard of a mobo inflicting such damage on a computer's performance.

What's wrong?

nicky9499 · 26-06-2008, 11:53 AM

Alright, I've backed-up and reformatted the drive in question on this computer, and it ran great; no bad sectors or laggy performance. However, when I plugged it back into the other computer, the same problems (extremely poor performance, long load times, choppy display) were showing despite having a fresh copy of XP installed without any programs at all. The computer has never gave me problems and rarely had any lockups.

P4 2.4GHz northwood,
1.5GB DDR,
40gb master, 120gb slave,
Geforce 6600gt AGP,
400W psu.

What may be the problem here?

m60dude5 · 26-06-2008, 04:56 PM

Do you have a virus, just to check?

nicky9499 · 27-06-2008, 04:19 PM

Virus? I just had it's partition deleted and reformatted! Unless of course you're saying that a virus managed to remain inside. I've had the slave disk scanned as well and there is really nothing of interest.
As of now I've not even installed or downloaded anything. The funny thing is while the processing power and all are still present (better than before as expected), whenever it comes to anything "graphics", even the most mundane task of moving a window or scrolling down anything will piss you off so bad you're better off putting a cracked egg back together. I've removed the 6600 but the situation seems almost the same.

Just what is the problem???

donkey42 · 27-06-2008, 07:23 PM

it's possible to have bad sectors remain on a HDD even after partition/s are deleted, what i did when this happened to me is:

blank the entire HDD (zero fill, before HDDs were zero filled there was Low Level Format, LLF doesn't really exist anymore but the term LLF still exists but it actually does a zero fill)

i used DBAN to zero fill my HDD, or eliminate your HDD by downloading & running a prog like Seatools for Seagate HDDs or whatever your HDD manufacturer is

BTW: if you use DBAN download the .iso and burn it to CD & boot the CD by changing the 1st boot device to CD

BTW: DBAN takes about 4 hours (160Gb HDD)

nicky9499 · 28-06-2008, 02:56 PM

Hi Donkey42,
Not trying to turn down your suggestion, however, I tested the drive as a master on another system, and it ran perfectly with no bad sectors or whatever in XP hard disk diagnostics. How else do I go about confirming whether or not the problem lies in the hard disk?

I know the hard disk is the prime suspect (not to mention of quite an age), but to all out there, please try to remember, has there ever been a case of poor graphical performance (choppy window-moving, as an example) where the source was something other than the hard disk? Something on the motherboard maybe? I took out a Nvidia 6600 but there doesn't seem to be a difference. Onboard video used to be able to perform rather decently as well, which was able to run Grand Theft Auto San Andreas on average settings very smoothly indeed.

All input is appreciated.

24-06-2008, 05:09 PM	#1 (permalink) Top
nicky9499 Geek Trainee Join Date: Feb 2008 Age: 15 Male Posts: 15 My Mood: Bored Status: Offline	Magical Hard Drive! One day or another, all of us face the same problem of running out of disk space, then people like me will procrastinate or delete lots of junk I never realized exist or ten of the same file. This worked really well until a few days ago, when the available space dropped from 1GB to 200MB. I've checked the page file, the settings have always been the way they are (both values 2000) and have never gave me any problems. So it's not the page file. By yesterday, it had officially reached a stage of chronic retardness. I moved the drive to another rig and I'm copying everything out should anything go wrong. But since it works great on this computer, does this suggest something wrong with the other one? I only have another slave with nothing but music on it, and that has never given me problems as well. What could be the cause of it? The ram? The 2 extra fans? The two DVD burners? Yes, it's a 3-year old motherboard, but even so, I've never heard of a mobo inflicting such damage on a computer's performance. What's wrong?

27-06-2008, 07:23 PM	#5 (permalink) Top
donkey42 Paranoid Geeky Geek Join Date: Mar 2006 Age: 34 Male Posts: 5,684 Times Helpful: 304 My Mood: Paranoid Status: Offline My Computer	it's possible to have bad sectors remain on a HDD even after partition/s are deleted, what i did when this happened to me is: blank the entire HDD (zero fill, before HDDs were zero filled there was Low Level Format, LLF doesn't really exist anymore but the term LLF still exists but it actually does a zero fill) i used DBAN to zero fill my HDD, or eliminate your HDD by downloading & running a prog like Seatools for Seagate HDDs or whatever your HDD manufacturer is BTW: if you use DBAN download the .iso and burn it to CD & boot the CD by changing the 1st boot device to CD BTW: DBAN takes about 4 hours (160Gb HDD) __________________ GRUB manual \| Google Linux \| Distrowatch \| Linux Chix \| Kubuntu \| My Mini City

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26-06-2008, 11:53 AM	#2 (permalink) Top
nicky9499 Geek Trainee Join Date: Feb 2008 Age: 15 Male Posts: 15 My Mood: Bored Status: Offline	Alright, I've backed-up and reformatted the drive in question on this computer, and it ran great; no bad sectors or laggy performance. However, when I plugged it back into the other computer, the same problems (extremely poor performance, long load times, choppy display) were showing despite having a fresh copy of XP installed without any programs at all. The computer has never gave me problems and rarely had any lockups. P4 2.4GHz northwood, 1.5GB DDR, 40gb master, 120gb slave, Geforce 6600gt AGP, 400W psu. What may be the problem here?

26-06-2008, 04:56 PM	#3 (permalink) Top
m60dude5 Geek Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 92 Times Helpful: 4 My Mood: Pumped Status: Offline My Computer	Do you have a virus, just to check?

27-06-2008, 04:19 PM	#4 (permalink) Top
nicky9499 Geek Trainee Join Date: Feb 2008 Age: 15 Male Posts: 15 My Mood: Bored Status: Offline	Virus? I just had it's partition deleted and reformatted! Unless of course you're saying that a virus managed to remain inside. I've had the slave disk scanned as well and there is really nothing of interest. As of now I've not even installed or downloaded anything. The funny thing is while the processing power and all are still present (better than before as expected), whenever it comes to anything "graphics", even the most mundane task of moving a window or scrolling down anything will piss you off so bad you're better off putting a cracked egg back together. I've removed the 6600 but the situation seems almost the same. Just what is the problem???

28-06-2008, 02:56 PM	#6 (permalink) Top
nicky9499 Geek Trainee Join Date: Feb 2008 Age: 15 Male Posts: 15 My Mood: Bored Status: Offline	Hi Donkey42, Not trying to turn down your suggestion, however, I tested the drive as a master on another system, and it ran perfectly with no bad sectors or whatever in XP hard disk diagnostics. How else do I go about confirming whether or not the problem lies in the hard disk? I know the hard disk is the prime suspect (not to mention of quite an age), but to all out there, please try to remember, has there ever been a case of poor graphical performance (choppy window-moving, as an example) where the source was something other than the hard disk? Something on the motherboard maybe? I took out a Nvidia 6600 but there doesn't seem to be a difference. Onboard video used to be able to perform rather decently as well, which was able to run Grand Theft Auto San Andreas on average settings very smoothly indeed. All input is appreciated.

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