hey guys...

Ill start with the Hardware:
MSI 648-F Neo MoBo
Intel Celeron 2.5Ghz (sl6zy)

Barracuda 20GB hdd - Pri Master
Maxtor 13GD Hdd - sec - Master
WD 10GDhdd - pri Slave
Lite-On 20x VD burner - sec Slave

ATI Radeon 9200SE

I'm having this really weird problem where if I am copying files to/from the Maxtor drive, CPU usage will jump to 100% and all audio will stutter...MSN sign-in noises, everything!

It never used to do this at all...Should I be very worried? S.M.A.R.T testing checks out all OK..

Any ideas/Suggestions??

KurtisWhat OS ?
How much FREE space on the destination drive ?
Is indexing service on or off ?
What happened prior to this ?
Any new hardware/software installed ?Hey Patio,
No new PROGRAMS installed...
at this time it has 6.09GB free out of 12.6Gb...So no PROBLEMS there.
Indexing service must be on as I have not changed it at all...It seems to be only with this drive.
Somebody told me recently their Cache went warped on their Maxtor and it was causing the problems as it wasn't working right. When I run a scandisk, everything checks out no problems.

Also, I opened task manager before copying some test files to it, and it shot up to 100% with system using and average of 50% and explorer using 30%

The weird thing is, when I copy between the two drives on the primary line, it is fine, but between the Maxtor (sec Master) and either of the two, it packs a sad...

Any more ideas? and thank you!
KurtisDoes the burner have any hiccups ? ?
If so i would try a brand new IDE cable on IDE2.

Another thing to check...if that channel had a few consecutive errors it may have dropped into PIO mode (the slowest)
Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager...right click the Secondary IDE channel and select Properties. If it is in PIO mode change it to UDMA if available save the changes and re-boot.

p.s. How large are these "test" files ? ?You were right Patio...It is in PIO mode and wont let me change it at all, just says use DMA if available, which it obviously musnt be as it would use it if is was?
I will try the drive just by itself, and see what turns out.

The device 0: PIO (Maxtor?)
Device 1 Ultra DMA 4 (DVD burner?)

The dvd burner is very near new...2-3 months OLD at the most.

Kurtis

2 things you can try if it is not saving the settings...
First you can remove the secondary IDE channel in Device Manager and upon re-boot Windows will re-install it.

Or 2nd Travel Here...

Note: The 2nd method involves tweaking the registry so make sure you have it backed up before proceeding.