DOCTOR^
IMPROVING YOUR PC EXPERIENCE ONE STEP AT A TIMEScrewed-up USB
Storage
I have a Maxtor 500GB
OneTouch 4 external hard
drive that isn’t loading prop-
erly to my desktop, which is
running Windows XP Home
Edition SP2, an AMD Athlon XP
1600+ with a VIA chipset, and
more than 1GB of RAM.
My older Maxtor 3000LS
40GB drive works perfectly. I
know the Maxtor OneTouch 4
is OK because it works with my
Toshiba Satellite laptop with
Windows XP.
When I plug the OneTouch
4 into my desktop, I get a
yellow question mark in the
Device Manager for Other
Devices, which suggests that
Windows recognizes the drive
on some level. However, I still
get a Code 28 message that
says drivers for this device are
not installed. What can I do
(without reinstalling Windows,
updates, or other programs)
to load the proper drivers? Is
there anything in the registry
that might be added or deleted
to make this work?
—Len KaneThe OneTouch 4 should just
pop up and work as normal in
Windows XP since the drivers
for the external storage device
are written on the device itself.
You don’t have any discs or
downloads to turn to.
The Doc suspects the
drive itself is working just
fine. After all, if it didn’t, you
wouldn’t be able to pull it
up on any machine, period.
To find an answer to your
dilemma, the Doctor hit upSeagate for assistance.
The company suggests
that you reset Windows’s
Infcache.1 file. To do this,
launch Windows Explorer
and type C:\windows\
inf in the Explorer bar.
Press Enter, which will pull
up the inf folder. Search for
the Infcache.1 file and delete
it. Unplug your OneTouch 4
and restart your computer.
When Windows boots again,
the operating system will
have rebuilt the Infcache.1
file. Seagate says this should
fix the problem that’s caus-
ing Windows to issue a Code
28 message when you plug
in the drive.
If it doesn’t, you have
one alternative: Run a
repair/restore installation of
Windows XP since something
is probably mucking up your
USB drivers.Sharing Data
Do CPU-intensive programs
perform better on a drive
that’s physically separate
from the OS drive, especially
if the drives do not share the
same data cable? In other
words, the OS is on a SATA
drive and the hard-hitting
program is on an IDE drive, for
example. Where does the page
file come into this? Should it
be placed on a third drive?
—Timothy JoyceIf the application is truly
100-percent CPU-bound, you
are unlikely to see an impact by
moving the output to a second
or third drive. For example,
encoding a two-pass H.264video is almost entirely pro-
cessor driven and produces
very small disk writes and
reads. But if you are editing a
large Adobe Photoshop file that
is caching to the hard drive,
having Photoshop write to a
secondary or tertiary drive will
actually help performance.
In that scenario, your perfor-
mance is gated by the CPU and
somewhat by the drive you are
writing to.
You can always try put-
ting the Windows page file on
a separate drive, but you’re
probably better off adding
more RAM—unless, of course,
the original drive is a complete
loser; then you might see a
small performance boost, but
nothing extraordinary.CrossFire and nForce?
My latest rig has a Gigabyte
GA-M59SLI-S5 motherboard,
and I’m using an ATI Radeon
1950XTX. I had an Nvidia 7950
GX2 originally and was going
to use it in an SLI configura-
tion down the road. That card
ended up being a real pain, so
I exchanged it for the ATI. Can
I add a second ATI card and
run CrossFire since the cards
would be sitting in an Nvidia-
chipset mobo made for SLI?
I’ve found conflicting info on
the subject and don’t want to
spend the money on a second
card if it won’t work.
—Greg BaumanThere’s no good reason you
can’t run two AMD videocardsThis month the Doctor tackles...
Disappearing Drives
Disappearing Drives
Disappearing Drives
Connectors
Disappearing Drives
Connectors
Disappearing Drives
Copy Protection Problems
DOCTOR^
IMPROVING YOUR PC EXPERIENCE ONE STEP AT A TIME72 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC| JUNE 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com
HP’s Blackbird 002 machine is one rig that can run CrossFire AMD
cards on an nForce-based motherboard, thanks to custom drivers.