Recently, I'm hearing clicks, hesitations, pops, stutter, hiccups, etc. when playing files off of one specific hard drive (E drive) I use for data storage, music files, etc. I've tried copying the same files to the system drive (C drive) and playing them from there and I don't get these problems. I tried reformatting the drive, but after restoring my data, I'm still getting the stuttering playback. So I suspect the drive is failing. Am I correct?

It seems so,
try some smart utility to check ur hard drive, such as http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/

One possibility - What access mode is the drive operating in, DMA/UDMA or PIO?

I'm not sure. During POST it says UDMA5.

From PC Wizard:

Informations Hard Disk ST3250823A :
IDE Channel : #1 - Slave Drive
Model : ST3250823A
Revision (Firmware) : 3.02
Family : Seagate Barracuda 7200.8
Serial ATA : No
Support : ATA/ATAPI-7
Size : 250 GB
Cache : 8 192 KB
ECC Size : 4
Multiple Sector : 16
IORDY : Yes
LBA Mode : Yes
DMA Mode : Yes
NCQ Mode : No
SCT Mode : No
DCO Mode : Yes
NV Cache : No
TCQ Mode : No
CFA Power Mode : No
SETMAX : Yes - Disabled
Multiword DMA Mode : 2
PIO Mode : PIO 4
UDMA Mode max. : 5 (ATA-100)
UDMA Mode Enabled : 5 (ATA-100)
SMART : Yes - Enabled
SMART Self-Test : Yes
AAM : No
Write Cache : Yes
Streaming Mode : No
Power Management : Yes
APM Mode : No
PUIS Mode : No
Security Mode : No
Trusted Computing : No
48-bit Address : Yes
Cylinders : 484521
Heads : 16
Sectors per Track : 63

OK, I installed it. What commands do you recommend running?

Which OS are you using? I remember in Microsoft Windows XP that sometimes there would be a delay from a drive and then Windows would ratchet down the bus speed to the drive and not restore it later. So an IDE100 drive would slow down its interface significantly causing stutters like you describe. Ultimately it was a symptom of pending drive failure - fixed by replacing the drive.

Interesting. I'm running XP Home SP3.

If you want to do a fast test (I assume that your hard drive is the primary, if not use sdb or whatever)

If you want to do a full test

To show the results of these tests


Or If you prefer a gui you can download
GTK runtime environment http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gtk-win/g...sh.exe?download
and GsmartControl http://prdownload.berlios.de/gsmartcontrol....5.exe?download

Check the drive in Device Manager to verify its running in IDE100 speed. If not, you might try uninstalling the drive in the device manager and then XP will reinstall it on reboot, reverting to max interface speed.

Where in Device Manager does the IDE speed get reported? I'm not seeing it anywhere.

Given the price of hard drives and the potential value of data, I wouldn't screw around with a potentially failing hard drive. Replace it now!

Then if you want to fool around with the potentially bad hard drive, do so, but in relative safety.

One other thing. Sometimes marginal hard drives are temporarily *fixed* by running CHKDSK with full surface scan of data areas and empty space.

I'll tell you how this all started a few days ago. I was playing a file off the E drive and the audio went into a continuous loop of clicks and the computer crashed and wouldn't reboot. After many failed attempts at rebooting, I disconnected the E drive and the computer booted up normally and consistently, so that is how I narrowed it down to the E drive.

After reconnecting the E drive, CHKDSK ran at boot time automatically and tried to repair it. Twice. It may have actually fixed something, because the computer would boot OK. But the problem with the stuttering audio continued (no continuous loops or crashes, but clicks now and then during playback). So I decided to reformat the E drive. After doing so (and restoring my audio and other data files to the E drive), the stuttering audio is still there.

So I'm reasonably confident that I've narrowed it down to a hardware issue with the E drive itself. If it were some of these other issues that others have brought up, such as DMA/UDMA vs PIO mode or IDE speed, I think that the problem would have surfaced long ago, rather than just a few days ago, as I've had this drive working fine for 4 years in whatever configuration it is in... until now.

@toronado455

Depending of your level of usage, 4 years is enough to decide to change your hard drive.
In fact even you don't use it much, it's interesting to buy a new one,
because in 4 years , much better hard drive are available .
Try any software like speedfan or hdtune, to check the health of your hard drive.

If I remember correctly, its under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" -> Primary IDE Channel -> [right click "Properties"] -> Advanced Settings -> "Current Transfer Mode"

If its PIO then you're definitely lower speed. I don't remember what the other modes are, but Google is your friend there. I temporarily solved my speed issue by right clicking Disk drives -> [disk name] and choosing "uninstall" in Device Manager.

Definitely consider drive replacement before its too late.

OK, I swapped in an old drive, copied my data, and the problems are solved. All audio plays perfectly. So the problem is definitely that hard drive.

I'm looking for an external drive for backups. I'm impressed with the Samsung S2 line (2.5") and the STORY Station (3.5") line. Anyone use either of those?

Thanks.

Primary IDE Channel reports Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA Mode 5.

Looks like PIO would be selectable as the other choice.