Hi,

I am new to all this - need some expert advice -here goes!

I have been trying to sort out my daughters slow laptop. To cut a long story short, I have tested the HDD using Everest Ultimate software and found that the Random Read Benchmark is coming out at 3.5MB/s. Is this good or bad? Shouldn't it be more like 100MB/s?? Also chkdsk is showing 32kb in bad sectors. ok I understand that the bad sectors indicates the disk has problems, but does this account for the low benchmark figure?

Yes, I'd say that the drive is starting to fail, which very likely could be causing the slow down. Backup the critical data immediately and replace the drive.

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

In addition to bad sectors, or as a consequence thereof, it could be that the drive is running in PIO mode.

Windows XP will downgrade a drive's performance from DMA mode to PIO mode if it detects more than 6 CRC errors.

DMA Mode for ATA/ATAPI Devices in Windows XP:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/st ... E-DMA.mspx

DMA reverts to PIO:
http://winhlp.com/node/10

Check Everest's SMART report. Otherwise here are two SMART diagnostic tools:

HD Sentinel (DOS / Windows / Linux):
http://www.hdsentinel.com/

HDDScan for Windows:
http://hddscan.com/

See this article for SMART info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.

I'd look for UDMA errors in the SMART report. These are said to be the result of cabling or communications issues.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Those drives are old and failure-prone. Get a new one.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

These smart check/benchmark are quite useless... knowing the 6025 it may be degraded media or early symptoms of mechanical wear out. It is possible to squeeze out a bit of life from it bringing to 'like new' state but you would have to send it to me... Hence, get a new drive.

I got to bump fzabkars post. It is most probably the PIO mode issue.

I suggest download the Hirens boot cd - burn the disc (use another pc not the effected one or the burning will fail) - On boot press the button (F12 or F9) for "boot device menu" - Sometimes you have to go into bios and change first boot device to cdrom- and then later put it back (use "del") Boot the CD- Load the live Windows XP Mini mode and from the menu choose Testing > HDD Speed.

If the results are the same as in your normally installed windows. Then the HDD is kaputen. Copy all data asap- get a new.

If you are not comfortable with the BIOS i suggest not to mess to much in it. Ask a local IT techie to help you out.

Good Luck

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Thanks guys for pointing me in the right direction. I am away for a few days, but will be back on the case later to follow up your suggestions. Will post back the results.

fzabkar,
Looking in device manager shows that the primary IDE current transfer mode is PIO. Tried setting it to DMA, as per microsoft link, but I cannot make any changes.

Reading the link, it says I need to uninstall/reinstall the primary IDE device, but I am nervous of trying this. I reasoned that if I uninstalled it, I would have a dead PC, with no going back since it is the C: drive!!

I have attached the full report from Everest which includes the SMART report

Yeah delete the Primary IDE and restart. After restart, the system will detect and install it again. Restart again and the system wil be in DMA mode automaticaly.

I have done that several times, no problem with it.

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thanks for the info pclab
re-installed the primary IDE and have now got UDMA mode5. Everest Ultimate HDD benchmark now gives 20MB/s random read as opposed to my original 3.5MB/s. Cant be bad! I suppose all is well untill the next time it falls over!

Still, those drives are old and failure-prone. Be sure you have a good backup

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

These SMART attributes suggest that there may be a problem with bad sectors:

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I have saw this error quite often in new laptops with new HD's. It's a bug between the board and your OS, that automaticaly changes the speed of access.

But, having backups is always an excelent idea.

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