Is this normal? I don't seem to remember having ide performance issues like
this before (this is a new install).
This is normal if dma is not enabled.
It isn't enabled by default in Debian.
To enable it install hdparm and then
run hdparm -d1 /dev/hdx as root
where x is either a,b,c,d depending on the
ide device.
Hopefully that will work and your problem
will be solved. If you're really lucky
like me you can do something like
hdparm -c3d1m16X66 /dev/hda to enable
other options such as ATA-66. Just
do man hdparm and check out the options.
You might want to make a script to run
hdparm on boot. You can put such
a script in /etc/rc.boot
it would look something like
#!/bin/sh
hdparm -options /dev/1stdevice
hdparm -options /dev/2nddevice
...
Hope that helps,
Bijan