2nd hard drive slows down system

[germike]

I have a new computer that's pretty fast .. that is, it used to be fast till I decided to install a 2nd hard drive.

The system came w/ one hd drive, a IBM/Hitachi 120 GB hard disk of type IC35L120AVV207-0 jumpered CS (cable select). The second drive (the one I installed) is an IBM/Hitachi 80 GB, type IC35L080AVVA07-0, also jumpered CS. I should also say that I am sure the 2nd drive is healthy since in my old computer, it ran without a hitch.

Immediately after powering on the system after having mounted the new drive I recognized two things. First, both drives worked as they should, insofar that both were readily accessible without restriction. Second, there was still something wrong ... the computer had become s-l-o-w.

Opening apps is very slow. Opening PartitionMagic takes almost forever. However opening the same app a second time is fast.

I have run Performance Monitor to see where the bottleneck may be. Being by no means a perfmon expert, it seems to me that the bottleneck is the second hard drive because when I open an app for the first time, the &quot;disk queue&quot; indicator for drive #2 would reach > 85 on perfmon's 1-100 scale, while drive #1 would stay cool (< 5).

I have double-checked the BIOS, and the OS's (both W2K and XP on a BootMagic double-boot config) and obtained the latest drivers and fírmware from IBM, but to no avail. Still both drives would do well but drive #2 would slow everything down.

Un-installing drive #2 makes the system run fast again. I haven't yet tried the 80 GB drive as the only master drive. I also haven't tried changing the drive jumpering from CS-CS to Master-Slave.

Now this is strange. In the many years as a technician I have not experienced such weird behaviour before. I am absolutely speechless and I would truely appreciate your help

Thank you, --Michael

 

[SelbyGlenn]

Here's a few pointers:

Have you tried running them on seperate cables? (try it without the CD-ROM installed) Or how about making the 120GB master and the 80GB slave instead of using CS. I've seen wierd things happen to old PC's when I put new hard drives in - maybe it's the same the other way round? What speed is the old drive? All devices on a parallel cable will alway run at the speed of the slowest device.

Hope this helps.

Glenn
BEng MCSE CCA

 

[germike]

Thanks, Glenn, but that didn't help.

But I found out myself....

Out of desperation, and against better knowledge, I changed the HD jumpers. Formerly both CS (cable select), I jumpered the master drives as &quot;master&quot; and the slave as &quot;slave&quot;.

Now guess what. BINGO!! IT WORKS!!!

Oh well. What can we learn from that. Never trust IBM? Well, we've been knowing this for 20 years. Never trust Microsoft? 15 years, same story.

Thanks again for your assistance.
--Michael