Windows 2000 / Disk problem

[andyf]

Bah so anyway I have a Windows 2000 problem on one of my PC's. Normally I'll all happy to say that I have no problems with Win2k but this is the first proper fault I have had with it.

I have a 120gb MAXTOR 4G120J6 drive sitting in there, working just fine... although one day I noticed the PC was using excessive power copying files to the other PC and whatnot. Turns out after a quick look that Windows 2000 has stopped accessing the disk in Ultra DMA mode, it's now using PIO. So the result is stupid amounts of CPU used for disk activity.

Reset the PC and checked the bios wondering if it had turned off in there. Nope, ultraDMA mode was on auto and rebooted. Lo and behold, Windows sees it as DMA mode. Left the computer on overnight as usual doing it's thang and when I get back from work the next day, it's in PIO mode again.

Reboots fix it, and as far as I can tell, for quite a while. It's not until I've left it a good 8-9 hours while sleeping and come back to check it's reset to PIO.

So, I'm trying to figure out a) what's causing it and b) how to fix it.
I'm also wondering why it can change something like this seemingly on the fly! bizarre... any one else spotted this?

By the way I'm on service pack 2, I'm going to install 3 when I get back home tonight/tomorrow and see if that fixes it, but if anyone's seen this problem before, please gimme a shout!

[andyf]

Extra hardware info:
AMD Duron cpu
ABIT KT7-RAID (not using the raid controller ide sockets)
Windows 2000 Pro
Maxtor hard disk

[TAC]

You probably won't get any help over the weekend, mate! Have emailed the thread to a friend in the hopes that he can help, but he won't get the mail till Monday, I'm afraid :(

[vega]

I have absolutely no idea WTF you are going on about :)

I don't mean that to sound offensive, but I am easily confused :)

[STiMPY]

Have a browse through your registry and have a look at the value of this key:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000]
"EnableUDMA66"=dword:00000001

If it's set at 1, then ATA66/100 is enabled. It's off by default in Win2K. SP2 is supposed to enable it but sometimes doesn't do it properly. After setting that you can also forcibly enable the ATA66/100 service by using the recovery console. Can't remember the name of the service offhand, but type listsvc for the list of services and it's at the bottom of the list. Enable it by using the Enable command cunningly enough. Enable /? for the switches.

[andyf]

So far so good... Didn't have that DWORD value so after looking at a couple of pages, figured I'd plant it right in there... now I just gotta stay awake long enough to notice if disk performance drops off.

By the way if anyone is interested, I can get 13.6mb/sec across 100mbit network from the 120gb maxtor to the raid0 array on the other pc - pretty sweet, these PC things :D

[STiMPY]

Originally posted by andyf
By the way if anyone is interested, I can get 13.6mb/sec across 100mbit network from the 120gb maxtor to the raid0 array on the other pc - pretty sweet, these PC things :D

That's very good. Equates to about 4GB in 5 minutes. That's virtually identical to the transfer rate I get from the RAID 0 array in my main machine to one of the SCSI drives in my CD writing machine. I take it you're using a switch for that? It's very fast for a hub if that's what you're using.

[Martin T]

Originally posted by andyf
So far so good... Didn't have that DWORD value so after looking at a couple of pages, figured I'd plant it right in there... now I just gotta stay awake long enough to notice if disk performance drops off.

By the way if anyone is interested, I can get 13.6mb/sec across 100mbit network from the 120gb maxtor to the raid0 array on the other pc - pretty sweet, these PC things :D
Though it probably said 13.6Mb/sec thats impossible. 100Mbit= 12.5 Mb/sec peak with no collissions etc. Probably said that for the same reason I can get 25k/sec:eek: from single channel ISDN (it should be 8!):)

[Algie]

Thought I'd logged onto the wrong Board for a moment!!

It seems that we've got an expert at everything on here!!!

Right, what am I good at? ......


Um......

Ah....

Er.......

I can gives lots of advice on cooking beans on toast!!

Alg;) (In need of qualifications!!)

[STiMPY]

Originally posted by Martin T

Though it probably said 13.6Mb/sec thats impossible. 100Mbit= 12.5 Mb/sec peak with no collissions etc. Probably said that for the same reason I can get 25k/sec:eek: from single channel ISDN (it should be 8!):)

I have actually transferred 4GB in approx 5 minutes. I've timed it. Using a switch you shouldn't get collisions. I was transferring between 2 machines only through the switch at the time and no collisions whatsoever (yes, I was sad enough to sit and watch the switch!). With hubs you tend to get collisions even if you have traffic from only 2 machines going through it. That's the reason I only ever use switches. They're so cheap nowadays anyway even for brand name stuff it's silly not to. Just my two penneth worth.

[andyf]

Ok so far it's all working good, not powered off or anything and it's still in DMA heaven :D

Stimpy: good work :D I'm using a crossover cable, no switches or hubs (except for the DSL), nice and cheap until I get some more PC's I suppose!

Martin: You are welcome to come round and watch me transfer iso's from box to box then if you doubt my speed :D

actually to be fair when I say 13.6mb/sec, that's a little bit inaccurate - i was copying 15mb files from pc to pc and they were taking like 1.2 seconds to copy per file... ;)

[andyf]

D:\>uptime
00:41:22 up 1 days, 0:19, 1 user


and it's gone into PIO mode... ****ing OS

[AshT_200]

Originally posted by andyf
Ok so far it's all working good, not powered off or anything and it's still in DMA heaven :D

Stimpy: good work :D I'm using a crossover cable, no switches or hubs (except for the DSL), nice and cheap until I get some more PC's I suppose!

Martin: You are welcome to come round and watch me transfer iso's from box to box then if you doubt my speed :D

actually to be fair when I say 13.6mb/sec, that's a little bit inaccurate - i was copying 15mb files from pc to pc and they were taking like 1.2 seconds to copy per file... ;)

It is possible with switches. With our old 3Com non blocking switches, I can get 1200MB/m from our TAPE Drive to a RAID 1 Set across a 100Mb network. That equates to 20MB/s :eek: Probably a ARCServe over estimating, because that equates to 160Mbits. :rolleyes:

With a Bitrate tester, we have a acieved 1.25Gb on a Gigabit Network.

All Cables were CAT5E Truenet.

[andyf]

Latest update! Watch my anger level rise (cue anger-o-meter)

Found that Event Viewer was showing Controller Errors and parity errors on the hard disk.

Couldn't find a way of fixing it, or reducing the harddisk/controller from UltraDMA 66 to UDMA 33.

Decided I'd put the hard disk on one of the ATA100 RAID controllers as I have a KT7-Raid board.

Windows booted.

Then I remembered why I didn't have the disk accessed this way before. Video clips, sound clips, and windows in general had weird 'skips'. A look at the highpoint driver readme showed this was 'fixed' in a later version. Scanning some more I realised I would have to install the latest raid driver in Win2k, then reboot and flash the bios.

So I did.

Had a bit of a problem with the motherboard not believing what chip I had in there, fixed that with some kind words and a couple of cmos clears and faffing.

The new bios showed up. all looked good.

Windows 2000 started to load and bluescreened within about 3 seconds.

Swore, rebooted

Windows 2000 started to load and bluescreened after about 10 seconds.

Swore, rebooted.

25 seconds, even saw the GUI appear.

Rebooted, safe mode.

Got into windows.
"your computer is running in safe mode blah blah"
Click here.
I clicked.
Blue screen.

Swore, swore. This PC then crashed and bluescreened as one of the harddisks fell over (raid 0 array and it had a spaz)

Missed not having a door to kick. Rebooted both PC's

Out of safe mode, made it as far as the GUI then bluescreened. Other PC happily booted up again into windows as usual. Opened up internet explorer. Heard hard disk "bounce" and spin back up. Sighed and turned both computers off and played need for speed HP 2 on PS2 and thoroughly enjoyed it. went to bed....
...
time passed..

got home from work
found floppy disk - printer driver - quickformatted and copied new raid drivers onto disk.

Booted with Win2k CD with CD booting.
error loading \i386\some-important-file
rebooted.
error loading something else
rebooted.
Finally got to the "load SCSI driver etc" screen after holding down F6 and making PC beep a lot.
Installed driver off floppy.
Windows Setup combined with my PC once again amazed me by ... finding another file was corrupted and aborting.

Rebooted AGAIN. Pressed F6 AGAIN. Got as far as install or repair. selected repair. Watched it 'check my hard disk'. Wanted to reboot, let it. Removed disk from A:

Started to load. Bluescreened. Filled pint glass with strongbow. first of many i'm sure.

Turned this PC on. Booted ok, hard disk hasn't fallen over yet.

Put the hard disk on problematic PC back onto the normal ATA controller. Decided to sod it and go back to having the thing slow down after x hours. Except it bluescreened on boot, some error.
Rebooted, loaded Win2k setup from CD. "corrupt file, setup aborting" ...

Cue the present.

So, I'm going to download an older bios and flash the motherboard again. Then I'm going to try and reinstall Windows 2000 again. I have no idea why the boot CD is coming up with all these weird and wonderful corrupt file errors as it worked FINE when I had to rebuild this machine. Something has well and truely shafted itself on the bios im sure - everything on the IDE chain is reporting errors at some point. Hard disk can't boot, CD can't boot. Going to cry if the PC isn't up and working by midnight.

[andyf]

PS. the bios I flashed with to try and fix it all initially was IN NO WAY disclosed as being a beta driver. I therefore assume it is the latest, stable, tested bios a user can have.

As I write this, having flashed the bios to an earlier one (but with the updated RAID/Highpoint controller bios), WINDOWS JUST BOOTED NO PROBLEM LOOK THERE'S MY ACE WALLPAPER OF A FIT BIRD.

Abit ... I'm losing faith.

[andyf]

Ok that's fine - booted , fiddled about , working good. Quite happy with that. Don't appear to have lost any data.

Now seeing as it seems good, I'm going to try the hard disk on the ATA100 again. if THAT works I will be ecstatic :D

[andyf]

YAH YAH IT'S WORKING ALL WORKING I FIXED IT I'M GIVING MYSELF BIG PAT ON BACK AND EXTRA LARGE DOUBLE VIMTO VODKA