Route44
Posts: 12,015 +82
I’ll try to make this as short as possible. Two years ago my sister gave me a Toshiba Tecra S1 (yes, by today’s standards it is old) that her company was giving away because they were purchasing new models. It sat in her closet for a year.
Because it was a company laptop I knew it had to have a lot of wear and tear. There were several accounts on it; I was really surprised that their tech department never upgraded to SP2.
So I cleaned up the system by removing all accounts but my own. I upgraded the RAM from 512 megs of PC2100 to two gigs and I updated the XP Pro to SP2.
I ran Seagate Tools for a hard drive diagnostics as a standard procedure on the original Hitachi 4200 rpm. It passed the S.M.A.R.T. and Short Self Diagnostic Test but failed the Long test every time.
Also, when I analyzed the Hitachi for fragmentation I was prompted to drefrag because I was showing 12% defragmentation. Here is the thing: No mater how many times I defragged when I analyzed again it told me I needed to defrag. Even after immediately defragging I was prompted to defrag reporting 12% each and ever time.
So fast forward; a number of people said with the repeated Long Test fails it was time that I replaced the Hitachi which I did with a brand new Seagate 54000 rpm a year ago. Everything went smoothly and the HD was immediately recognized.
But here is the thing: The Windows defragmentation utility constantly reports 12% fragmentation Seagate even after defrag. And I am getting the same reads on this Seagate as I had with the Hitachi: Pass the S.M.A.R.T. and Short but fail the Long Test every time (I did the Short and Long Generic and I Passed them).
One other thing. It now takes an average of 10 minutes for the Desktop to load all icons. I removed the HP Printer drivers and anything else that I thought might be slowing the load times. No change.
I’ve always had Avast and Online Armor free versions so that can’t be it. There are no infections. I have noticed that updating to SP 3 had slowed down load times but nothing of this magnitude.
*** Any ideas or advice would be most welcomed.
Because it was a company laptop I knew it had to have a lot of wear and tear. There were several accounts on it; I was really surprised that their tech department never upgraded to SP2.
So I cleaned up the system by removing all accounts but my own. I upgraded the RAM from 512 megs of PC2100 to two gigs and I updated the XP Pro to SP2.
I ran Seagate Tools for a hard drive diagnostics as a standard procedure on the original Hitachi 4200 rpm. It passed the S.M.A.R.T. and Short Self Diagnostic Test but failed the Long test every time.
Also, when I analyzed the Hitachi for fragmentation I was prompted to drefrag because I was showing 12% defragmentation. Here is the thing: No mater how many times I defragged when I analyzed again it told me I needed to defrag. Even after immediately defragging I was prompted to defrag reporting 12% each and ever time.
So fast forward; a number of people said with the repeated Long Test fails it was time that I replaced the Hitachi which I did with a brand new Seagate 54000 rpm a year ago. Everything went smoothly and the HD was immediately recognized.
But here is the thing: The Windows defragmentation utility constantly reports 12% fragmentation Seagate even after defrag. And I am getting the same reads on this Seagate as I had with the Hitachi: Pass the S.M.A.R.T. and Short but fail the Long Test every time (I did the Short and Long Generic and I Passed them).
One other thing. It now takes an average of 10 minutes for the Desktop to load all icons. I removed the HP Printer drivers and anything else that I thought might be slowing the load times. No change.
I’ve always had Avast and Online Armor free versions so that can’t be it. There are no infections. I have noticed that updating to SP 3 had slowed down load times but nothing of this magnitude.
*** Any ideas or advice would be most welcomed.