Very slow reading dvd files

[kmac66]

Hello all I have any dvd and it has worked very well over the years yes even
Disneys new releases. But when my hard drive filled up and only left me with about 20% left on the drive I found that when I tried to copy a dvd movie it didn't read as fast as it used to, well that makes since that it would act like that being almost full.So what I did was buy a bigger drive a 320 from using an 80 and cloned everything that was on the old drive most everything else on the new drive worked pretty good but not good enough so I contacted Dell about my 2400 demension desktop and told them that it wasn't running as fast as it could so the tech
emptied the Cashe files and temp files and man that helped alot but this one program (any dvd) worked but my cd/dvd drive just wasn't reading those dvd files very fast at all, one movie would take upto an hour or more to get to the point to burn on the clone dvd burner.I checked to see if there was an update on the driver but none. Don't know how much memory is left with the programs thats on my machine.Could be a memory problem and I may have to get another 1 gig of memory.Wondering if anyone else has had this problem or knows what to do to fix.A memory problem, drive going out?Or
the program being corrupted? I just don't have a clue.Hope someone can help me out. Specs on my Dell. windows XP, 1 gig memory, Intel pentium 4
Thanks Ken

[Yaris]

One word...DEFRAG.

[kmac66]

Reply -Machine had been defraged on drive c and memory defraged too.
Thanks

[glussier2010]

A pentium 2.4ghz with a 533mhz bus, by 2010/2011 standards is an extremely slow computer. While an extra 1gB of ram would help, you might be better to look for an entry level pc. Even a small dual core, entry level computer, would run circles around your Dell computer.

[Majestic 12]

Also be sure your only running cloneDVD/AnyDVD (Or both) and not doing day to day stuff.

Ive noticed a slowdown (And before the regular posters jump on the "get a new rig bandwagon" I have a very nice system. As well as several others) My slower one will backup disks faster then my newer one if Im trying to do even simple stuff like post and email.

Long run I have one dedicated to backups since it was older and not as needed for my web servers and game servers I run. But that one is just basic AVG (Making sure its not doing a hidden scan, Windows OS and the Programs to do backups. I even have it locked down from updates and searching the web for updates.

This rig as a test try I backed up one of the newer disks I bought and it took 10.42 to do. Im doing it again with just this post up and response and its already nearing 20 minutes and by the time done maybe 25 minutes.

Before you ask about ram i have 8 gigs on this rig so try my idea of shutting everything down not really needed and retry. See what happens.

Dont even have a messenger up or web browser.

Last thing while yes Upgrading is nice some cant afford it even with lower end systems. Also the rig in question blowing one of my top of the lines away is a:
2.1 AMD
2 gigs ram and
250 IDE Hdd

Then again its dedicated to the cause and not doing the 200 other stuff I do a day.

This writeup for you was done since there is way to dedicate portions of your speed on a rig to just doing this process but the headache involved is not worth it unless you know what your doing. But if you did you wouldnt have posted this in the first place. Hope this helps.

EDIT: 44:15 since i kept doing just internet and email 4Xs longer in the end. I kept up doing this since I wanted to know for myself what it would have as a difference myself

[Zeratul]

you could try checking the mode of the drive. if i remember right its something like dma mode. the slower one was enabled on my dirve once, and it took 1:45 hr to burn dvds.

[kmac66]

Just a Big Thanks to all you folks that reply to my Question. Ken

[kmac66]

Originally Posted by Zeratul

you could try checking the mode of the drive. if i remember right its something like dma mode. the slower one was enabled on my dirve once, and it took 1:45 hr to burn dvds.

Hello Zeratul
Could you tell me how to find out the mode of my drive? Thanks Ken

[mike_r]

Use ImgBurn.

[xCharvelx416]

Originally Posted by kmac66

Hello Zeratul
Could you tell me how to find out the mode of my drive? Thanks Ken

Either from your Start Menu, or the icon on your desktop, right click My Computer, and go to Properties.

Click the Hardware tab.

Click the Device Manager button.

Click the + in front of IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers.

Inside here, you're going to find the IDE Channel icons, and if you double click them, you should see an Advanced Settings tab. There, you can select the drive in question, and make sure it's on the correct DMA setting. Set it to the highest available. More than likely, DMA 5 or 6.

(oh... and as an extra special speed tweak, any drive not actually connected in the system, can be selected as "none" in this section - when Windows boots, it scans the system just like the BIOS does for all available drives before it reaches your Desktop, so if you don't have one, Windows won't scan that channel if "none" is selected)

and yeah... I'm still in the old folks fan club,... running an AMD XP 3200, on a 400mhz bus, with 2GB of ram. Rips movies just fine... most just under 8 mins.

But when my hard drive filled up and only left me with about 20% left on the drive I found that when I tried to copy a dvd movie it didn't read as fast as it used to, well that makes since that it would act like that being almost full.

Data is usually stored from the outer edges of the drive's disks, and move inwards as you start to put more data on them. The outer edges are actually spinning faster than the inner, so that also takes into effect when drives begin to get full. Besides, with XP... you really don't want to get anywhere near the 25% mark, or the OS won't even have room to defrag the drive if it needs to move too much data around.

I've spent too many hours watching computers run defrag programs, and since I have very little on the OS drive, everything is backed up to much larger drives. When they are full, they are full... not going to bother wasting any more time watching large terabyte drives defrag.