HHD does not boot, slow response

[skykaptain]

Hello,

My dual boot 1.5 TB (Seagate) has been acting up. Whenever I boot into XP or Vista everything is slow. The HHD light blinks at a constant rate no matter what's going on. The XP and Vista progress bar moves at a rate equal to the HHD light. I have used Seagates Seatools and the drive  has passed the long test (4 hours) numerous times. I have emailed Seagate and am awaiting their reply. I would like to know if there are any other tests I can use to see what is wrong and what my next course of action is. Thanks.

[quaxo]

Have you fully checked the computer for viruses?

[skykaptain]

I did a scar Wednesday and found nothing. This has been happening since Thursday night. If I could get in to a OS I would run it again but it takes a hour and a half to get to a desktop in Vista.

[patio]

If you have auto update turned on it may be trying to finish dloading and installing updates....
Any messages on boot up ? ?

[skykaptain]

There are no messages on boot up and I don't think it is because of auto update, I just did a update last week.

[patio]

Did this machine run properly before ? ?
If it takes over an hour to boot to an OS there are serious issues here...

[skykaptain]

Yes, this machine has been running very good for a year and half and this problem has just started Thursday.

[patio]

Did you run seatools under Windows or from the bootable cd ? ?
What protection apps are you running ? ?

[skykaptain]

I ran Seatools from a floppy and i have MacAfee total protection on both XP and Vista.

[patio]

Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager....
Right clik IDE controllers and selct Properties.....see if the drive has dropped into PIO mode...

[skykaptain]

We might have a break through. I booted this morning and it seemed to work. Vista did a chkdsk and found a bunch of stuff and seemed to correct it. so far it is running ok. All i did us unplug my extra HHD. I'm going to plug it back in now that everything works.

Don't see anything under Xp or Vista about PIO mode...

[skykaptain]

That worked. Everything is fine and good to go.

[patio]

Good News....Welcome to CH and stop by anytime !

[skykaptain]

I found out it was the cables. Might have to replace them. Thanks.

[patio]

I replace mine yearly. For the price it's worth it.
Did a new build with a GigaByte MBoard yesterday and they have an improved SATA cable design with clik locks on the end...pretty nice as SATA plugs can easily be jarred loose...