There, at first, seemed to be a hard drive problem with my computer. I
have a 200GB, and a 300GB hard drive. Months ago, after leaving the
computer on too long, the DV AVI files I captured to the second
harddrive would be choppy - after a restart, things would usually be
fine.

When I got for the summer, the drive's performance took a major dive -
the videos (not just DV ones) on it began to play with quite a bit of
stutter here and there. Eventually it's become where I cannot play
them at all for my sanity's sake - I have to copy them to my C drive.

I swore this was a drive problem, since I can be playing music and
when I enter a folder on the second drive with the video folder marked
as "Thumbnails", the audio becomes incredibly spaced-out and choppy.
This was until two things: I tried a Live Linux CD and videos on both
disks plays perfectly, as well as this choppy issue coming up when I
enter the My Videos folder with thumbnails on (the folder is on my C.)

I've tried Safe Mode and every diagnostic startup I can thing of; the
problem still remains in Windows. The second harddisk is said to be
down to 3 MBps speed from the original assumed ~150. The main drive is
performing at a decent 150MBps.

So it's something wrong with not either drive but instead something
with Windows. But whatever it is, is not a service, a program that
starts up with the computer; nor is it in Boot.ini or any of those
other systems. So my question is, what can I do to fix this problem?
I've moved the paging file, defragmented both drives (though the
primary doesn't want to fully do so - but the files act fine
independant of Windows so that isn't it either.) Any ideas as to what
I could do aside from a long Windows reinstallation? Both are SATA
drives, and (as though I haven't provided enough information already
:) I've run Maxtor's utility and both drives, after 6 passes in a
Burn-In test, have fully passed.

Thanks again, I hope to see this issue resolved soon - I still have a
lot of video to edit.

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Request for Question Clarification by livioflores-ga on 18 Jun 2005 15:02 PDT

May be you must reinstall the SATA controllers, check in the mobo or HD pages.
also tell us which version of Windows are you using.
There are reports on the net that many people had this problems:
"SATA drives are too SLOW":
Here you will find some clues.
http://www.devhardware.com/forums/archive/t-31027/SATA-drives-are-too-SLOW

Kee pus updated and we will try to assist you more.

Regards.
livioflores-ga

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Clarification of Question by crazymatttt-ga on 19 Jun 2005 03:02 PDT

If I have to reinstall the controllers, I (a) wouldn't know how to do
that, and (b) don't understand how they could get corrupted at all. It
would make sense, however, since it would be constant in all loads of
Windows but not any other OSs.

I read the thread you linked thoroughly, and generally the performance
of my second HDD is as the topic creator describes; makes the system
bog down. Thing is that this is only recent - in the last six weeks
it's gotten to this point - rather than his problem of the symptoms
showing up upon installation.

I'm using Windows XP Media Center Edition, also. 

Here is the drives comparison screenshot from HD Tach; hopefully it
helps a bit (the lower pane info was the defaults and doesn't reflect
the actual drives or their interfaces, etc.

http://img93.echo.cx/my.php?image=comparison6qk.jpg

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Clarification of Question by crazymatttt-ga on 19 Jun 2005 19:09 PDT

Also, as of just a few days ago virtually any audio or video being
played on the main drive will stutter a bit (the way the second drive
was a few weeks back.)

This seems to be definitly Windows itself - but again the question is
what's doing it. I'm pretty desperate for a solution at this point.
And tips/pointers in the right direction is greatly appreciate.