Unstable hard disk copying

I have a Windows XP machine with 2 Maxtor 160gig hard disks.
The first one has a partition of 20 gigs (C: ) for Windows and another partition of 140 gigs (D: ) for my games.
The second one has one large partition of 160 gigs (E: ) and is used for general file storage.

When I copy from E: tot D: it hangs every couple of seconds for about 1 second and then it copies again, and this keeps going until the copy-ing is ready. So it isn't going smooth whatsoever.

Does anyone know a cure for this?

 

Yes, both are checked.

I just did a clean install BTW, and then the problem came up.

 

Check DMA is enabled for both disks. Device Manager>IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers>Primary IDE Channel - then right click and Properties> Advanced Settings. Should be Mode 6 for hard drives. If one of your hard drives is on the Secondary Channel then look at the properties for this one as well.

If it’s not that then perhaps it’s that both hard drives are on the same channel and you don’t have a lot of ram in the machine.

When you reinstalled XP did you install the manufacture’s chipset drivers for the motherboard or just leave it using XP's own generic ones?