Help Diagnose Slow Disc Access

[Les]

On Tue, 2010-02-23 at 18:35 -0800, Kam Leo wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 1:50 PM, Mike McCarty
> <Mike.McCarty at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > Don Quixote de la Mancha wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> 
> > I downloaded said software, and burnt a CD-ROM. I ran the diagnostics
> > on both discs (both are WDs, but of different sizes). The smaller
> > one passed both a "quick" test, and an "extended" full surface scan
> > test, and both in about the amount of time the tool estimated. The
> > larger one (the one I'm having performance problems with) failed the
> > "quick" test, due to timeout, after several times the estimated
> > run time, but passed the "extended" full surface scan, though it took
> > significantly longer than estimated. The estimated time was just over
> > 15 hours, but the test ran 83 hours 33 minutes.
> 
> Failing the "quick" test and long completion times are sure signs that
> the drive is in trouble. You can try reformatting the drive to see if
> that improves performance (doubtful). Good luck finding a new IDE
> drive. You might have to use a SATA drive with a SATA-IDE adapter or
> buy a SATA controller and change all your hard drives to SATA.
> 
> 
> [snip]
Microcenter had a good supply last time I was up there, and reasonably
priced, too.  They are available on the web.

www.microcenter.com

Regards,
Les H