When you purchase a new hard disk, you will usually see it operate with optimum efficiency. However, as time progresses and you continue to load files in your hard disk, you will notice that its performance is gradually deteriorating. This can be for many reasons. Your hard disk may be performing in a sluggish manner because you have loaded too much data into it. If that is indeed the case, deleting some unnecessary files and freeing up disk space can remedy the situation to some extent. Running disk utilities like Disk cleanup, disk defragmenter and Chkdsk can also help improve the performance of the disks to some extent.
The speed of your hard disk indirectly effects the performance of your internet connection too.
So, if your hard disk has always performed in a sluggish manner, chances are that you are either dealing with a defective hard disk, or have an earlier version of Windows XP on your PC, which does not enable DMA mode for data or optical devices. In the latter case, you can try to fix the situation by enabling DMA mode by yourself. In order to do so, follow the steps given below:
- Go to Control Panel and open up the System applet.
- Click on the tab Hardware and then on the button Device Manager.
- Expand the tree named “IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers” by clicking on the plus sign.
- Now right click on Primary IDE Channel and select Properties.
- Select “DMA if available” from the drop down menu “Transfer Mode”.
- Click on the “OK” button. You will be prompted to reboot your PC.
- Click “No” and repeat the same procedure for the Secondary IDE Channel.
- Now reboot your PC.
If your Windows XP is of an older version, then this will set your disk drive to DMA mode, vastly improving its performance. However, if your hard disk is defective, then this will have no effect on your disk performance. In that case, your last resort will be to replace your hard disk.
