I have a 200 GB hard drive set up as a slave to my 15 GB boot drive, and it has arount 105 GB free. I have access to it, and it's working (as far as I can tell), but it's not as responsive as I would like, and it's not the biggest fan of moving data. I tried to defrag it, and the defragmenting program acted like it was underwater.

Anyway, CHKDSK keeps sitting there at 15%, whether running in boot mode, or through the Windows XP gui. I have no clue how to speed it up, or if it's actually working, but I really am getting bored with this.

Is there a better way to check for errors? Or is there something I should be doing?

Thanks a bunch!

http://img132.imageshack.us/my.php?image=chkdsk6kr.jpg

Welcome to the forum,

Can you give us the make and model number of the flaky drive, thanks.

It's a Seagate Ultra ATA. ST320082 2A I think. Well, I reinstalled windows a couple times, and both my 200 gig's went out. I think the MBR's were completely gone to...well, ****. Anyway, with GetDataBack for NTFS, I managed to copy everything to a borrowed HD, and I'm going to format the two soon.

Click start > run > type eventvwr

Click on system events and look out for "atapi" ideport0/1 timeouts.

This will give us a good idea to whether the drive is responding within time. However this will not rule out IDE controller or drive. Report back if event viewer is recording timeouts.

Okay. I reformatted them, and all is well. But not quite! One, a Maxtor, is labeled music. As I type, this one hums quietly away in my case, and all is well with it. My computer is responding well, I have no viruses or adware to speak of, and I'm almost enjoying life. But lo! There lies on top of my case, the source of all grief and woe! The SEAGATE!!! Yikes. It, queerly enough, is the cause of my PC descrepency. When I delete a file, and empty my recycle bin, with the Seagate connected, the computer acts like I have 2 mb of ram. (I have 1 gig.) But consequently, I'm able to speed through the emptying process just fine without that infernal thing. Now, I am using a Promise ATA controller, because I have a DVD drive, a CD burner, a 15 gig Windows drive, and the Maxtor already installed. I will investigate to see if it's the Promise controller (i.e. test the Seagate in the Maxtor's place, test the Maxtor on the controller, etc...) I'm also going to try Norton System Works to scan for disk discrepencies. I would like to say, though, that I am very, very pleased with the level of help that I'm getting. I realize I'm making you need to ask questions, but the attentiveness is really awesome. I WILL frequent these forums. ^_^

Okay, I connected the Seagate as the slave drive on my primary IDE channel, and everything is fine... FolderSize is a little quirky, so I'm still going to run NSW, but it's fine. So, the controller is doing the funny business. Any suggestions? I want to make it work. I would investigate buying a new controller, if anyone suggested a more reliable one. Thanks again!

goto the drives web site there you should find some faq's on your drive. i had to change thing in my bios by flashing it to be able to use the newer large drives.