eSATA drive made system unstable?

[Dale]

I purchased a Seagate-FreeAgent Pro 750GB External USB 2.0 and eSATA hard drive over the weekend to add additional room to my PC which I use, among other things, as a DVR.

My PC is running Windows XP Home, and ever since I connected that drive it seems to just stop.  Besides just stopping, programs that ran fine, like the client to SageTV have suddenly crashed.  I can start iTunes, select something to play, press play, and nothing does.  The selection is displayed but time never advances (and there's no sound).  I can press pause and play repeatedly and nothing happens.  Yet the application will let me exit or select other play lists.  Worse, I've left the system alone after stopping iTunes, or stopping the SageTV client, and come back hours later only to find it totally unresponsive.  No response to the keyboard or mouse.  Even pressing the PCs off button does nothing unless I hold it in.  After it restarts, things seem fine.  At least for a while.

I guess this problem could be software related but I believe it has to do with this new hardware.

The PC I connected this drive to, which I put together several years ago, has:
Intel D865PERL mother board
Pentium 4 2.8GHz Northwood chip
1GB RAM
ATI 9600 Radeon Pro 128MB
120GB IDE drive (boot/master)
250GB IDE drive (slave)
400GB IDE drive (master)
Pioneer DVR-A07 DVD/CD (slave)

I started recording HD shows and found I wanted more disk space.  Since my system has two SATA channels on it, I thought I'd give them a try rather than swapping one of the existing drives for a bigger one.  Even at 150MB/sec, I figured that would be fast enough to meet my needs.  (Turns out it doesn't seem to be though - more on that later.)  I did not think a USB drive would be nearly fast enough.  And I didn't really want the additional heat I read those big 750GB drives generate.

So I purchased a 1 meter SATA to eSATA cable and the Seagate-FreeAgent Pro 750GB External USB 2.0 and eSATA Hard drive over the weekend.  Ever connecting it up, my system has been flaky.  Applications are crashing and/or not working, and, as I mentioned, the system just totally hangs and has to be restarted by holding the power button in till the system resets.

Other than disconnecting this nice (?) drive I just purchased, I'm looking for suggestions to get my system running like it used to, which was problem free.

FYI, I found that this new drive may not be performing as good as I need it to either - when the system's up that is.  Unlike the 400 GB drive I currently use for recordings, I am unable to both record and playback shows on that drive simultaneously.  I found that when I did, the playback suffered from stuttering.  I've yet to see what the impact on the recordings, if any, were from my attempt to do some playback while they were being made.  I just know I was recording one show to that new drive, and then, while that was happening, I tried to play back a different show, and that show stuttered really bad.  Then, once the system stopped recording I was able to play back the show that had stuttered with no problem.


Shouldn't this eSata/Sata drive perform as well as my EIDE drives?  FYI, I have found I can only use the master EIDE drives for recording.  When I used a slave drive to record, it did not work.  I couldn't play back anything that had been recording without seeing similar stuttering.

Helpful input would be much appreciated!

Dale

[guestolo]

Not sure what's happening
Seems to be conflict or misconfiguration
Do you have latest version of Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility
Version 8.4.0.1016
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/filter_res...mp;submit=Go%21
Your chipset should be supported
View the ReadMe

The above may help
Did you format Seagate-FreeAgent Pro?
I believe it comes formatted FAT32, you may want to try NTFS

[Dale]

[quote name=\'guestolo\' post=\'395153\' date=\'Oct 9 2007, 01:16 PM\']Not sure what's happening
Seems to be conflict or misconfiguration
Do you have latest version of Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility
Version 8.4.0.1016
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/filter_res...mp;submit=Go%21
Your chipset should be supported
View the ReadMe

The above may help
Did you format Seagate-FreeAgent Pro?
I believe it comes formatted FAT32, you may want to try NTFS[/quote]
I'll check both things.  I wondered if I needed a BIOS update or something.  I'll look at the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility first.

I'll also try reformatting that drive too.  Having it as NTFS, and more importantly with 64K blocks, should help with performance.  Of course, if I can't get rid of the hangs and software crashes, running faster is a moot point.

Do you think the issues have anything to do with the fact I used a SATA to eSATA cable to connect up the drive?

Thanks,
Dale

[Dale]

[quote name=\'guestolo\' post=\'395153\' date=\'Oct 9 2007, 01:16 PM\']Not sure what's happening
Seems to be conflict or misconfiguration
Do you have latest version of Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility
Version 8.4.0.1016
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/filter_res...mp;submit=Go%21
Your chipset should be supported
View the ReadMe

The above may help
Did you format Seagate-FreeAgent Pro?
I believe it comes formatted FAT32, you may want to try NTFS[/quote]
No luck so far.  :-(

I ran the chip set utility to no avail.  I had reconnected the drive after reformatting it to be NTFS (it already was actually) and specified 64k block size and things seemed okay for a while.  Then, while surfing the internet, everything just locked up.  The computer had frozen and needed to be rebooted by pressing and holding in the power button.

I guess I'll call Seagate to see what they may have to say about this on Monday.

I don't think this drive is going to meet my needs even if I can get it to stop crashing my system though.  While things seemed normal I experimented with recording one show to it while playing back another and I could not do so.  The play back suffered from stuttering suggesting that the drive could not seek back and forth quickly enough to facilitate both recording and playing back something simultaneously.  Something my internal IDE drive I use for recording has no problem handling.

It might suffice if I could get it to run at the 3gb speed but that seems to be an unattainable goal.  My system's mobo won't support that speed with its built in sockets and I cannot find a controller card for my PCI slots that will support that speed either.

I'm thinking I'll just replace my boot drive with a  bigger IDE drive, partition it, and use the new partition for additional recording space.

Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Dale

[Dale]

[quote name=\'Dale\' post=\'396260\' date=\'Oct 13 2007, 04:52 PM\']No luck so far.  :-(

I ran the chip set utility to no avail.  I had reconnected the drive after reformatting it to be NTFS (it already was actually) and specified 64k block size and things seemed okay for a while.  Then, while surfing the internet, everything just locked up.  The computer had frozen and needed to be rebooted by pressing and holding in the power button.

I guess I'll call Seagate to see what they may have to say about this on Monday.

I don't think this drive is going to meet my needs even if I can get it to stop crashing my system though.  While things seemed normal I experimented with recording one show to it while playing back another and I could not do so.  The play back suffered from stuttering suggesting that the drive could not seek back and forth quickly enough to facilitate both recording and playing back something simultaneously.  Something my internal IDE drive I use for recording has no problem handling.

It might suffice if I could get it to run at the 3gb speed but that seems to be an unattainable goal.  My system's mobo won't support that speed with its built in sockets and I cannot find a controller card for my PCI slots that will support that speed either.

I'm thinking I'll just replace my boot drive with a  bigger IDE drive, partition it, and use the new partition for additional recording space.

Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Dale[/quote]

Drive returned.  Issue closed.

I ran Seagate's diagnostic software on the drive and it could not pass one of the tests.

Seagate support said the drive was defective.

Due to performance issues with this drive, when it functioned that is, I did not exchange it for a new one.

I read a review on extreme tech (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2173840,00.asp) which showed the FreeAgent Pro to be a poor performer.  I wish I'd seen that article before making my purchase.  At least I did get my money back!

Dale

[guestolo]

I didn't see your previous reply till now,
Glad you got it resolved, a defective drive you wouldn't expect, but it does happen