Results 1 to 9 of 9

Thread: Installed new SSD - old HDD giving problems

  1. #1

    Thread Starter
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Location
    The Netherlands
    Posts
    5,070

    Installed new SSD - old HDD giving problems

    Hi,

    I have recently bought a SSD and installed it today. It works fine, but now it seems one of my other regular HDDs is giving me problems. Let me explain.

    The situation before the SSD:
    HDD 1 - 250 GB, Windows 7 installed here,
    HDD 2 - 500 GB, just data.

    The situation now:
    SSD - Clean install of Windows 7,
    HDD 1 - 250 GB, Formatted before installing Windows on SSD,
    HDD 2 - 500 GB, Didn't touch it.

    My plan was to use HDD 1 as another data drive alongside HDD 2. I wiped it clean to get rid of windows and start with an empty drive. The SSD is my main system drive, obviously.


    It seems however that Windows has a problem accessing the HDD 1 in some occasions. I didn't really detect a good pattern yet, but here are some symptoms that I see regularly:

    1. Playing a video file (eg a movie):
    - When the file is stored on HDD 1, the movie will freeze after a couple minutes, no matter which media player I use. It will freeze for about a minute and then continue, and it tries to 'catch up' the lost minute by playing everything really fast.
    - When the file is stored on the SSD or on HDD 2, there are no problems.

    2. Accessing files via Windows Explorer:
    - In Visual Studio I tried to open an existing project. I clicked the 'Open project' link after which the open file dialog is supposed to pop up. Nothing happened for over a minute. In the mean time I tried opening windows explorer manually, nothing happened. After about a minute, suddenly everything "unfroze" and about 6 explorer windows popped up, along with the open file dialog from Visual Studio. The open file dialog happened to point to a location on HDD 1 by default.
    - If the open file dialog points (by chance) to a location on SSD or HDD 2, it comes up immediately.

    3. Starting a game:
    - Game installed on HDD 1. The game takes ages to start, and once it does it hangs while loading. Requires me to kill the process before I can continue.
    - Same game installed on HDD 2: no problems.
    - I did not try to install it on SSD because I know this particular game does not benefit from it.

    4. Accessing files from said game:
    - The game is a racing simulation game and it happens to have a feature where you can pick car setup files stored on your system. By chance, these files were located on HDD 1. When I tried to access them (from within the game) the first time, the game froze for about a minute. After this it unfroze, the files were accessible as normal for the rest of the evening.



    Everything points to HDD 1 being the culprit, but I have no clue what could cause it. I did have a brief look in the Disk Management and I noticed that this drive was listed as Active. That isn't right, is it? It has no operating system so should not be active... So I corrected that, put the SSD drive as Active (actually, a 100 MB system partition on it which seems to be the default for win7), but after a reboot nothing has changed, the problems remain.


    Does anyone know anything else that could cause this? Should I just throw the drive out and learn to live with 250 GB less?
    Thanks!

  2. #2
    Smooth Moperator techgnome's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Posts
    34,532

    Re: Installed new SSD - old HDD giving problems

    check to see if there's any jumpers on the old HDD that may be directing it to act as the master (should be the slave in this case) ... Or... it could be that it's simply reaching the end of its life. But I suspect that the jumper on the drive has it trying to act as the master.

    -tg
    * I don't respond to private (PM) requests for help. It's not conducive to the general learning of others.*
    * I also don't respond to friend requests. Save a few bits and don't bother. I'll just end up rejecting anyways.*
    * How to get EFFECTIVE help: The Hitchhiker's Guide to Getting Help at VBF - Removing eels from your hovercraft *
    * How to Use Parameters * Create Disconnected ADO Recordset Clones * Set your VB6 ActiveX Compatibility * Get rid of those pesky VB Line Numbers * I swear I saved my data, where'd it run off to??? *

  3. #3

    Thread Starter
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Location
    The Netherlands
    Posts
    5,070

    Re: Installed new SSD - old HDD giving problems

    Hmm Ill have to check that tomorrow evening, I cannot see any jumpers without taking it out and ill have to take out some other stuff before I can take out this drive... is there no way to check the jumper setting from within windows?

  4. #4
    Smooth Moperator techgnome's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Posts
    34,532

    Re: Installed new SSD - old HDD giving problems

    No... they're a hardware setting kind of thing. But I guess the question I should ask first is if the drives are SATA or IDE? If their SATA, then I don't know as they don't use the jumpers, while the IDE types do. Dependign on the configuration of the case, you might be able to see them by takign the cover off of the case. They're usually next to where the IDE cable connects... if you're lucky it'll be on the near side, and easy to see. If you're not lucky (as is in my case) then the jumpers are on the far side, and it requires good eyesight, and a good light to see them w/o taking the whole thing apart.

    -tg
    * I don't respond to private (PM) requests for help. It's not conducive to the general learning of others.*
    * I also don't respond to friend requests. Save a few bits and don't bother. I'll just end up rejecting anyways.*
    * How to get EFFECTIVE help: The Hitchhiker's Guide to Getting Help at VBF - Removing eels from your hovercraft *
    * How to Use Parameters * Create Disconnected ADO Recordset Clones * Set your VB6 ActiveX Compatibility * Get rid of those pesky VB Line Numbers * I swear I saved my data, where'd it run off to??? *

  5. #5

    Thread Starter
    PowerPoster
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Location
    The Netherlands
    Posts
    5,070

    Re: Installed new SSD - old HDD giving problems

    Here's an update:

    I've been switching around the cables (swapped cables between HDD 1 and 2) and ports (swapped between 1 and 2), used new cables for HDD1 and HDD2, nothing helps, the same problem keeps appearing only on HDD 1.

    I downloaded HD Tune and ran a Error Scan on HDD 1. While it did not find any errors, it did 'freeze' in the middle of the test for exactly 67 seconds (there is a timer that stopped at 17 seconds when it froze, and jumped to 1:24 when it unfroze). During this time I could not access the drive at all. This seemed to be a typical freeze that I'm experiencing all the time (which also causes videos and games to hang). The scan however continued like nothing happened after this and no errors were found.

    In the Health tab however, I do get a warning on Ultra DMC CRC Error Count. Below is the info from the Health tab from HDD 1 (left) and HDD 2 (right):



    Finally I took the drive out, and it does not seem to have a jumper setting. It says on the label: Master/Slave jumper not required for SATA. So I guess this drive doesn't require one. I am not putting it back, it took me 30 minutes to get it out (long story short: had to remove the cooler fan to get enough room and moving that fan back is a b*tch!!), so I will try to test it on another computer, let's see what happens... For now I guess I'll just have to live with 250 GB less

  6. #6
    Banned
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    764

    Re: Installed new SSD - old HDD giving problems

    try to format the 250Gb hdd using the slow format option with win 7 and or win xp

  7. #7
    Hyperactive Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Greater Manchester, UK
    Posts
    476

    Re: Installed new SSD - old HDD giving problems

    What's the point in getting an ssd and installing files on your older hdds. Your programs will run faster on ssd because of the disk access time.

    Also do you have enough power to run all 3 drives?
    If your question is answered then mark your thread RESOLVED and give credit to whoever answered it.

    If you fail, try and try again, its the only way to success.

  8. #8
    Banned
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    764

    Re: Installed new SSD - old HDD giving problems

    Quote Originally Posted by chris1990 View Post
    What's the point in getting an ssd and installing files on your older hdds. Your programs will run faster on ssd because of the disk access time.

    Also do you have enough power to run all 3 drives?
    the point is for the OS to be installed on the SSD, resulting in a faster boot.

    there is a limit to how many times data can be rewritten on an ssd (at present time).

  9. #9
    New Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Posts
    1

    Re: Installed new SSD - old HDD giving problems

    I have similar issues to Nick,

    perhaps NCQ is the culprit?

    http://communities.intel.com/message/132992#132992

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  



Click Here to Expand Forum to Full Width