Greetings, Ill try to make this short and sweet.. I recently have been getting poor performance out of my hardware. I thought it was windows, but here I am (at this second) installing windows xp again.. and yet its still acting up.. its been about 45 mins and its still copying the setup files.. something has to be wrong here. When I installed windows xp in the past it basically only took 3 mins to copy over the setup files during windowsxp installation.. so Im thinking its hard drive troubles.. I also thought it was overclocking issues.. but again i tested it without any overclocking.. same problem... so any input that could help me determind what the problem is? Thanks

AMD Athlon 2000+ CPU (oc to 1.84ghz)
ATI Radeon 9200 128 meg
Chaintech 7VJL1 Motherboard
Maxtor 40gig 4200rpm (Master)
Western Digital 80gig 5400rpm (Slave)

If you need anymore information on my hardware just ask
Thanks again

I am not the pro on motherboards, but if I had your problem and I was fairly sure that memory and MB was oK, I would take out the 40 gig for the install and try it with the 80 as master. You can always add the 40 later.

yeah.. that's a good idea ill try to install windows on the 80 gig.. but first im going to test the 40 gig with 2 programs "drive fitness test" & and maxtor's diagnostics tool "PowerMax" maybe they will give me the proof i need!
Thanks

Hi and be welcome!

This problem you are experiencing could indeed be related to the harddrive you are installing Windows to, but it doesn't have to be like that. There are quite some reasons why a system can be slow. It is quite common that Windows gets slow after being installed for some time, esp when there's loads of software on it. If you are reinstalling from a CDROM that is hard to read (scratches, dust, grease etc), it may take a long time to read all the data. This is just an example situation, but it could well be the case.

So let me ask you a few things:
1. Is your primary master really a 4200rpm harddisk (could be a typo, as 7200rpm is common for regular disks, 4200rpm is something we are used to from 2,5" disks)?
2. What exactly is running at a to low speed.. is it the harddisk? Or does this involve tasks that require heavy computation?

dee-ehn.. it was the harddrive.. and yeah sorry i made a few typos it was 7200rpm.. my mistake.. but im installing windows on the 80gig right now.. and its flying.. already at 53% and its only 30 secs in.. now thats more like it.. im not really pleased with maxtor drives.. this is my third maxtor drive that has died in the last 2 years. But thanks for all your help guys. Appreciate it. I will return in the future

Just a quick question are both Hard Drives on the same controller. Just asking because when I try to install Windows on a drive attached to my Promise controller I get the same issues but through the Intel controller I have no problem. The Maxtor Diagnostic will normally give you a code if it's bad and yes I have returned two Maxtors for failing the diagnostic.

Maxtor does not seem to be what it used to be. I still have a 60 gig going strong, but way too slow. I have found WD and Seagate to be OK, especially with the customer service with problems. Just make sure to get OEM on WD or the warranty shrinks to 1 year. Also, if you have a problem with Seagate be prepared to wait. I still am waiting for an RMA replacement from a drive sent in in the middle of April.

If you are looking for a good drive, I would highly recommend samsung - www.newegg.com carries them. They run very cool and quiet.

Western Digital drives (and probably maxtor, and other modern 7200RPM) drives can get very hot, good ventilation for cooling is a must. I don't think I would ever run a WD drive without some kind of air flow (case fan or hd cooler).

If I recall, seagate and samsung are two of the coolest and quietest drive makers. Heat kills hard drives. Samsung drives also carry a 3 year warranty.

Without active airflow, my 160GB WD will get almost to hot to touch!