XP drive access problem

[dmanlyr]

Question, XP pro, works fine except that when accessing any of th edrives thru "my computer" or trying to save a file to other than what comes up as the default in "save as" , the hard drive light comes on continuosly and the computer slows way down, normally I just shut it off and restart (restart button) I have been living with it for some time now, I beleive it started when updating to the latest NV motherboard drives. Why, why do I upgrade drives whren things are working right!

#1 system resore back to day one had no effect
#2 scan disk had no effect - took overnight
#3 surface scan had no effect - took overnight
#4 removing and reloading motherboard drives had no effect

Any ideas? Other than restarting once again? Which is getting tiring, I have never had this many different problems with a os before.

Abit NF7-S, 512 generic ram (x256), AMD 3200, not overclocked, WD 120 IDE hard drive, cd-rom, burner and a SCSI DVD

Thanks in advance, David

[BipolarBill]

If a drive is performing slowly, there's a good possibility that it is failing.

Test the drive with the WD diagnostics:

http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/dlg11_dos.exe

Even if it tests well, go to the WD support site and submit an RMA with cross-shipment.

http://websupport.wdc.com/warranty/serialinput.asp?custtype=end&requesttype=warranty&lang=en

Copy the old drive to new with the same diags floppy and then put the old drive in the box that the new one arrived in and ship it back. Easy.

One thing about WD drives - keep them cool. They need good circulation.