Storage HD disappearing and/or slow after OS reload.

[PartyOfOne]

Hey all,

  I'm kinda being stupified on this problem, so I thought I would post to this forum and see if there is anyone who has seen this sort of problem before and possibly have a solution.

OK, so here is the deal...

Computer: Compaq Presario S6300NX

Motherboard: A7V8X-LA (Kamet 2) - according to support page

OS: Win XP Home, upgraded to XP Pro

Added Storage Drive: Western Digital WD1600JD (160Gb SATA hard drive)

Drive Jumper

One other thing to possibly mention is that, even tho there are 2 SATA ports on the motherboard, all factory components used IDE ribbon cable.

Step 1. A friend of mine game me the hard drive mentioned above which I set as just storage using a SATA to SATA cable. (as opposed to what looks like an IDE motherboard connector to SATA HD connector listed on the spec sheet as being included with the drive)  No probs, system recognized it right away and assigned it a drive letter.  Worked just fine for 2 months.

Step 2. My system was a bit sluggish, so decided that it was time to reload the OS.  I ended up upgrading to Windows XP Pro instead of the Home edition that came with the PC.  So copied lots of files over to the new HD.

Step 3.  After the reload, I tried accessing the WD drive, trying to copy some files back off it.  It was slow.  Really slow.  Like it took 12 mins to copy a gig of data from the WD drive to my factory boot drive where normally it would be 2-3 mins. Then after a while, the drive would just disappear from 'my computer' a well as from the control panel device list.  After a reboot it would come back, be slow but usable (glad I was at least able to get me data back) and then after slowly copying stuff off, it would disappear again.

Step 4.  When I originally put the drive in, there was a jumper on the 1-2 jumper was on.  The drives spec page said that this jumper enabled SSC.  This was not the default setting, so just to try it, I pulled the jumper off.  No change, still slow and disappeared.  So just to get back to pre-reload hardware config, I put the jumper back on.

So that is where I'm at.  I went to the compaq download section and grabbed the original chipset drivers, the ATA Raid driver and a few others.  Anytime I go into th BIOS, the drive would be there.  But somehow XP is 'kinda' seeing it, then losing it.  Im baffled.  Usually a device is either seen or not seen... this one is 'lightly/weakly' being seen... keeping in mind it worked just fine before the reload... which is why Im thinking missing driver.  And more on the original system end, not on the HD end, because when the HD was cabled in, it took just fine. 

Possibly a hidden driver somewhere the enable the SATA ports to work differently?  Possibly a setting for the SATA ports, and/or drive config?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I'd say I'd give yu my first born for your help, but she's in her tween years now and a PITA!!  You wouldnt want her.

Thanks,

 - Tom -

[RoyalSerpent]

Some boards may require the installation of SATA driver.  Be sure to update XP Pro to SP3.

I'd download Copywipe and burn it on a CD.  Reboot with this CD and use Copywipe to zero-fill the data HDD.  Upon completion, boot into windows and use PartitionMagic or equivalent to format the data HDD as an extended logical partition.  I prefer FAT32, but NTFS is also okay if you have a huge drive.  Reboot and downlod HDTUNE to check for the speed of the data drive.  The minimum average speed should be north of 25MB/s.

The problem could also be the result of a bad data cable.  You can download the hard drive fitness utility from the mfr's website to check hard drive integrity.