I was working on a co-worker's computer and ran across a really weird problem. First, Dell 4550 with Win XP. The IDE throughput is very slow. When I test it out I get 1-10MBps instead of the usual 45-55. I have changed out cables and added a second HD as slave which showed the same problem. Reinstalled drivers, tried different MB connection, multiple virus scans, etc. All with no results. Tried the HD in another computer on USB and all is well.

I concluded that the IDE part of the MB was bad but as a last result, I copied all the data off and reinstalled XP again on the original drive and, surprise, all was well! I have to conclude something was at work as soon as I booted that would slow down anything connected to IDE, either virus or some other weird Windows bug.

Anyone have any ideas? I hate to copy the backed up files back if there is a virus and I have solved the problem but I would still like to know the cause.

Thanks

I've hooked up a hdd of a neighbors as slave before and it had a virus on it and my McAfee's caught it. Did you get alerted to anything when you got the data off of it Chas?

Edit:
You could leave it in your pc and run some online scanners pointing them to that drive.

I've run a few variations of scanning software and none caught anything. I do not want to plug it into my computer for fear of a migration of the problem if it is a virus, so I will have to give it back and see if it reoccurs. I reinstalled XP but left all their files so if it is still there it should pop back up.

No guts no glory. Just kidding.

I thought you had already plugged it into your system sorry