Attaching slave IDE hangs otherwise perfect Win 7

Hey, all. Got my Win 7 7600 install up. It was flawless until I attached an IDE slave to get some data off it.

Booted fine. Detected the new IDE slave. Automatically installed some ATA controller drivers. It got named E:. Started copying some video files off it. 3 of 12 were copied fine, then a message came up that it could not read the drive and finish the transfer.

Similar behavior when I tried to add a libary on E:/Music in iTunes, then WinAmp, then Windows Media Player. With each program, it starts scanning, then hangs. Permananetly. It takes so long to come back, I just hard reboot.

I've tried different bios settings, including safe defaults.

I have a SATA DVD and so have ACHI mode on in bios. Can't say I truly understand what that means, but it's on. Same behavior when it's off though.

Could it be that on the slave one partition has an XP install, and so Win 7 doesn't like reading two master boot records that are boot disks?

Gugafan said:

Hey, all. Got my Win 7 7600 install up. It was flawless until I attached an IDE slave to get some data off it.

Booted fine. Detected the new IDE slave. Automatically installed some ATA controller drivers. It got named E:. Started copying some video files off it. 3 of 12 were copied fine, then a message came up that it could not read the drive and finish the transfer.

Similar behavior when I tried to add a libary on E:/Music in iTunes, then WinAmp, then Windows Media Player. With each program, it starts scanning, then hangs. Permananetly. It takes so long to come back, I just hard reboot.

I've tried different bios settings, including safe defaults.

I have a SATA DVD and so have ACHI mode on in bios. Can't say I truly understand what that means, but it's on. Same behavior when it's off though.

Could it be that on the slave one partition has an XP install, and so Win 7 doesn't like reading two master boot records that are boot disks?

How big is the IDE drive and how old?

First impression is it seems to be dying.

It's a 120 Gb Western Digital. It's got some years on it, but it's been fine in my XP install as a data drive, acting as an mp3 library, torrent DL directory, video playback. Doesn't seem like a coincidental death when I went to a new OS.

Gugafan said:

...Could it be that on the slave one partition has an XP install, and so Win 7 doesn't like reading two master boot records that are boot disks?

Because you are not having an issue related to booting, No.

There are a myriad of known issues with AHCI/IDE, especially if you switch modes after the OS is installed. My perspective is that most users/platforms are better off without AHCI enabled - but that is another can of worms entirely.

Due to considerations that are not easily addressed in this forum, it will be difficult to determine if you have a bad drive or a BIOS/OS conflict.

In my opinion, you are better served by a re-install. Attach all devices. In BIOS, set your controller to legacy/IDE/whatever (not AHCI). Even RAID is acceptable but not advised in this instance. Reinstall.

Gugafan said:

...Doesn't seem like a coincidental death when I went to a new OS.

Sadly, a single cosmic ray can kill a drive. Not likely, but possible. A charge of 3,000 volts DC is required before you can feel it - that carpet spark. A much lower charge is enough to disable a circuit on the drive.

All I am saying here is you never know. Three years is a reasonable life expectancy for a hard drive in some circumstances.

Antman said:

Sadly, a single cosmic ray can kill a drive. Not likely, but possible. A charge of 3,000 volts DC is required before you can feel it - that carpet spark. A much lower charge is enough to disable a circuit on the drive.

All I am saying here is you never know. Three years is a reasonable life expectancy for a hard drive in some circumstances.

Very eloquently spoken my friend.

Just to elaborate a bit more on the subject of failing hard drives.

It could well be you can browse the folders, see all the files, and even play a mp3 without any problem, even for years.

Yet when you do a massive transfer of files from the disk, you deliver the final blow to it.

I was unhealthy all this time but you didn't know.

You can compare it to a man with a heart condition.
As long as he is in his lazy chair all is well, but have him running a block or two around his flat and off he goes in the ambulance.

But on a more positive note:
This can be a life saver
GRC | Hard drive data recovery software

Make sure you read every bit of info on it before using it.

After it has done it's good work which might take 24 or even 48 hrs, you must immediately save your files to another disk.

Because it may well be your drive's last run.

Lesson to be learned.
Make backups before you get into trouble.

Thanks, guys. Here's what I'll try. I'll boot on the XP side and get the crucial data off, and run check disk and do a full reformat. Then see if W7 can deal with its existence.

no one suggested reading the smart data from the drive ?

other than that, suggestions in the post are spot on

Check disk on the XP shows several bad clusters, including in the mp3 that was being indexed by the media players when hanging.

Stupid ocham's razor!

Oh, well, I'm glad it's not a bios or W7 problem. Thanks, all!