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  • #2263503

    WinXP slows way down when adding a second hard drive.

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    by michaeltech ·

    I am having problems with my Xp box. I have tried to add a second hard drive to a system. The problem is that when I do this XP slows down. This happens throughout the OP system from booting to calling up apps to slowing way down when using Win Explorer or my computer. I Have a main drive of 60G on IDE0-Master I also have a DVD DRive and a DVD Burner. I have tried several brands and sizes ranging from 40g-100g and I have tried having it on ide0-slave and both dvds on IDE1 I have tried DVD on IDE0-Slave, HD IDE1 either master or slave and the DVD drive as the other still the same. I have set master/slave and also used cable select. same thing. What is going on here?
    I had this happen once with the same type of setup but had 2 scsi drives and an idecd-drive and IDE cd-burner and I finally gave up and switched to a large single IDE Drive thinking it was something with the scsi’s This setup had worked on a win98 machine with no problem. I have a setup where I keep a bunch of tech files on a master HD and I have setup a removeable HD Bay(Not HotSwap)when I have alot of files or a large file that I want to copy quickly I pull drive and inserted it as second drive. or when I am not doing that I keep my mp3 collection on a drive that I insert or I have a few drives with things that I don’t need often and I will swap them in and out as needed. Works better than filing CDs and I can keep different versions or service packs together in one directory incase I need to use an earlier version. Now that I have a spare XP box I am trying to move everything off of the 98 box which has been good to me. what is going on here with the slowdown after a second drive.

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    • #2489078

      Clarifications

      by michaeltech ·

      In reply to WinXP slows way down when adding a second hard drive.

      Clarifications

    • #2489028
      Avatar photo

      That is Normal

      by hal 9000 ·

      In reply to WinXP slows way down when adding a second hard drive.

      When you add a second Drive to the Boot Drives IDE Lead. It slows the system down dramatically. The best way around this is to place it on the second IDE Chanel if you have one and leave the Primary IDE Chanel alone with just the boot drive on it.

      If you just have to add another drive to the system buy a PCI to IDE or SATA Card and that will allow you =to retain the speed while adding additional storage space for whatever it is that you need. Also if you use one of the SATA Plug in cards they have 2 SATA connectors and 1 IDE Connector so you can dump 2 IDE Drives onto this without scarifying the speed of the primary IDE Chanel though to be quite honest SATA would be the better option.

      Col

      • #2488945

        try this

        by naw-yi ·

        In reply to That is Normal

        i have 2 harddrives on my wifes rig and it bootfast and works fine, this is how its setup- ive got xp hd on primary ide channel as master0 i have 2nd drive as slave1 on same ribbon now make sure your ribbon is connected with master0 at end and slave1 middle of ribbon. also, check this, rightclick mycomputer/properties/hardware/devicemanager
        doubleclick – IDE/ATA/ATAPIcontrollers rightclick on primary IDE channel/properties/advancedsettings, now in the Device0 box under Transfer mode make sure DMA if availiable is selected, do the same for Device1 below. now u will have to reboot for this to take affect.

        you should be good to go 🙂

    • #2488942

      format the second drive

      by naw-yi ·

      In reply to WinXP slows way down when adding a second hard drive.

      format the second drive if ya havent done so even if its right out of the box. also, if you have xp installed on the second hd it will still boot, just make sure in the bios that the boot drive is hd0, and make it the only drive that boots, disable all other booting options in bios. that will decrease boottimes. also, if your memory timings are incorrect in bios your system will seem to hang.

      hope this helps.

    • #2488927

      power supply

      by jamesatmaisonverre ·

      In reply to WinXP slows way down when adding a second hard drive.

      Your power supply is not powerful enough to support the particular hardware your installing.Upgrade your power supply

    • #2486953

      What Drives?

      by willcomp ·

      In reply to WinXP slows way down when adding a second hard drive.

      Please provide make/model of HDDs.

      Two similar drives arranged as master/slave on primary IDE channel should not cause significant performance degradation if configured properly.

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