I can help ya out if you still trust me (my performance on your last problem was less than adequate
Download dskbench from:
http://www.sesa.es/dskbench/dskbench.htm
It's a small benchmark utility that simulates multitracking audio software (multiple large files at various block sizes).
Run the program from the command line, it'll take from 3-10 minutes to finish (in my experience). When it's done, it'll have spit out some results that'll help us figure out what's going on.
Things we might find: a) the drive is just slow...it's probably 5400RPM. Too bad. b) The drive is not running in UDMA mode, as indicated by a very high CPU utilization. We can fix this. c) the drive is plenty fast, running properly, and the problem lies elsewhere.
I know you're not a big fan of the command line. Here's what you do...
1) Download the program.
2) Unzip it to c:\ (the root of your HD) If you need an unzip utility you'll find WinZip at
www.winzip.com
3) Click Start->Run and enter "command.com" in Win9x or "cmd.exe" in NT4/5
4) An interpreter (DOS) box will pop up. Enter (without quotes) "cd \"
5) The prompt will now be "c:\>"
6) Assuming you unzipped dskbench.exe to the root of your drive, enter (without quotes) "dskbench.exe" and WAIT for it to finish. Write down all everything in the report it spits out when it's done.
If you're feeling friskey, instead of just entering "dskbench.exe", enter "dskbench.exe > results.txt" and instead of dskbench outputting results to the console (DOS box), it'll write the results to a file called "results.txt" (or whatever you want to name it).
Good luck. (BTW, you might think to use EchoReporter, but it sucks dog)
When your done, delete dskbench.exe and dskbench.txt from the root of your drive.
Slackmaster 2000
