windows xp run very very slow. freezes sometimes even after format and clean install,

but with linux Live CD(ubuntu) everything working just great!


i have windows xp pro sp3 installed on my computer.
till 3 days ago everything worked good.
then suddenly everything started to turn very bad.
at first it's just became slow but i could still work on it.
after a day or 2, it became very very slow and i cant use my computer.
everything is opening very very slow.
after it opened, it works also very very slow and as i said, i cant work on the computer.

also, if i want to copy files from one partition to another, it takes a long long time to do that, and for example, i tried to copy my outlook express messages(4.1 Gigs) to backup partition (from C to D), and the time that was written was about 70 minutes long to finish this process, which is very very slow.

so ,i decided to format my drive and install a fresh XP.
but after the format and installation, the computer react very very slow again, exactly as before.
also, my other physical HD didn't recognized well in the computer, and even if i saw a letter of the drive in "My Computer", when i tried to get into it, it says that the drive is not formatted, and it asks me if i want to format it.
sure i don't want this, because i have there a lot of files.

as i said before, with linux live CD everything works great.
i copy the outlook express messages in a couple of minutes, and there are no freezes.
very smooth functionality.
also i can see my another physical drive and all of it's content exactly as it should be.

another thing i can say is that i tried also install windows 7 by overwriting the XP installation, but i saw that windows 7 CD didnnt recognize the drive where XP is installed, and just recognize the drive which XP could not recognize .
very strange behaviour of my computer.

because in a live cd everything working good, i think i dont have a hardware problem.
but because i did a fresh install after format, which didnt solve the problem, i dont think it's a software problem
what can it be?

thanks a lot for your help and sorry for my not-so-good english

 

i have desktop machine.
motherboard: gigabyte 965p ds3
2 GB ram
ATI hd 2400 pro
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6600 2.4GHZ

i have 2 hard drives:
i dont know how to see the brand in linux, but the one that XP is installed on him, is 250 GB (3.5 year old, and SMART in SpeedFan tell he is in good shape).
i think it's Western Digital HD.
the second HD is samsung 1 Tera.

 

sorry for the late response and thanks for your help!
i have a great but strange news, but first about the bios, i never did this kind of thing.
i have f12 if i'm not wrong(this is what written in the start up process).
for now i think ill stay as it is right now.

and now for the news:
i removed the hard drive which win xp installed on, from my computer, and insert an old one(40 GB drive) which i have from an old computer.
on this drive i installed windows 7, and it worked good.
no freezes, all goes smoothly.
but i forgot i need a file to print, which is in the drive i removed from my computer, so now i removed another hard drive from my computer(not the 40 GB one) and insert again the drive which did all the problems.
i thought that i could print this file from the windows 7 installation, but what happened is that win xp(on the failed drive) startup very fast, and everything works good, without any freezes(except one time but after restart everything just worked great again).
now i don't understand what is happened here.
why suddenly the drive that before works very bad, now works just great?

another thing that i dont know is how to make a dual boot menu.
win xp starts immediately and i cant get into my win 7 OS.
i tried to use EasyBCD, but i keep get into my win xp, and dont get the menu i should get.

thanks a lot for your help

 

hi again .
the 40GB drive is pata drive.
the 250GB and 1Tera are sata.
first i remove the 250GB, and connect a new pata cable for the 40GB drive(i didn't have one in the computer).
the 1Tera stayed in this stage in his place, without touching it.
after that, i removed the 1Tera drive and connect the 250GB one.
i don,t remember if i connect it to the cables he was connect to before, or to cables the 1Tera drive were connected to.
after that, xp started very good(and still right now), without any problem(except the one time i mention before).

the 250GB drive with the XP, is with 2 partitions.
one with 30 GB(with the XP OS), and the other with the rest(without operating system).
the 1Tera drive is just for data and have one drive which include the whole size.

about the win 7 thing that i cant get a menu for dual boot, there is something new.
i inserted a live cd again with the newest ubuntu(came out couple of days ago), and just after startup, i get a message that it found an error in the a drive on the computer, and i think that it is the 40GB drive, so maybe this is the reason i can't get into that drive.
after all it's a very old drive, so maybe it is after his good days .

thanks again .

 

acrsn, thanks a lot for your great help and all your explanations!
(may) the force will be with you, ALWAYS .