Ozzuneoj wrote:

Anyone know if older IDE drives have compatibility issues with newer controllers?

My first thought is that this could have something to do with it.

Have you tried any of these drives in an older system? Preferably with 9x or perhaps NT/2k?

If the drives are good, they should work fine.

If BIOS recognises them, they at least work (and jumpers are set correctly). XP probably does several HDD checks for integrity and they most probably fail and then uses PIO mode that drastically reduces computer response.

Some of the Highpoint RocketRaid controllers are confused by small drives, reporting them as 2 GB regardless of actual size. This leads to problems with some drive imaging tools.

Some time ago, I sold a 486 (with two HDDs) and a Pentium MMX computer. Before sending them, I tried to make a back-up of their drives, using a IDE to USB adapter. Only one of three drives connected properly and allowed me to copy files.

All three drives were fine, they passed MHDD tests correctly, so maybe the USB adapter was trying to use DMA/UDMA modes or ATA commands not implemented on those old drives (maybe other ATA controllers can do the same thing).

I'd try to connect those drives to an old computer with an old HDD controller (i.e.: not use one of those fancy new PATA controllers) and check them with MHDD, to be sure that they aren't defective. If they work, check for missing features (i.e.: DMA/UDMA modes) than can explain that performance or check IDE cables. If they're fine and still works slowly, use them on old computers or simply sold them out.

Old drives pre 500+MB didn't have LBA support so newer controller have problems figuring out what to do with them. You also have issues with master and slave if you are trying to connect more then one drive to a cable. USB to IDE cables have a fit with most old IDE drives.

Another thing that comes to mind is whether you're using the older 40 wire or later 80 wire ribbon cables.
These drives will undoubtedly make use of the older type, but I think it most likely relates to the fact that these drives don't make use of the more modern transfer speeds (as already mention in an earlier post).

I had a few issues with older IDE drives (40MB to 250MB range) and IDE-USB adapters.
They weren't detected by those adapters, but worked fine on an ISA controller interface.

From personal experience I'm not aware any IDE -> USB device that works with non-LBA disks.
Maybe this has become the behavior of modern IDE controllers as well? Can't back this up, just a thought.

He did test one 52MB drive successfully. So I doubt there are any real issues except the drives themselves.

Before this one I tested a Quantum ProDrive LPS 52 52MB drive and it worked flawlessly in XP, formatted without problems and has zero bad sectors.

I go with the controller incompatibility theory here, as well as the cable (40 vs 80 wire) as well.
I have seen this issue on old floppy controller's as well. They need the correct cable.
Modern floppy cables will sometimes not work on old 16bit ISA controllers.
That is why I am going with that cable issue as well. Why would that be isolated to floppy only.

brostenen wrote:

I go with the controller incompatibility theory here, as well as the cable (40 vs 80 wire) as well.
I have seen this issue on old floppy controller's as well. They need the correct cable.

Especially those cables with an, um, "nose". Sometimes the orientation on them was wrong (upside down).
No idea why, but after I removed that "nose" the cables would fit and my drives were working fine.
And no, I didn't plug them in in reverse by accident.

Thanks for all the info guys!

I'm actually using this system because I had trouble with my Cables2Go USB IDE adapter running these old drives.

I'll keep testing things to see if I can repeat the same problems with similar drives. If it looks like a compatibility thing, I'll probably test the more finicky drives in an older system using an ISA IDE controller.

I will say, I was very surprised to see that the quantum drive was only 52MB... It looks like every other quantum drive I've owned. It may not be as old as there others despite the capacity.