USB HDD too slow

[windchimes]

Recently I converted my old 80Gb HDD to usb (usb2.0). But when connected to my machine file transfer is too slow. for eg: A movie dvd of 4.3 gb is showing 76mts to copy from myHDD to this usb drive. My idea of converting was to backup some of my old documents, softwares and music files. Any idea why this is too slow..??

[legolas]

when you connect the hardisk, does windows spit out any message like "this device can perform faster"?? If not, try it on other system. If its the same, then there might be some issues with your hardisk's reading capability. If its different, then you will have to check your system's port.

[windchimes]

No such messages were displayed. And i tried on several usb ports on my machine and they all seems to be slow. But I think few days back it performed at a faster rate..
How can I get it to perform at the normal speed..??

[gary4gar]

a quick question: a Usb cable which is used to connect has two connectors on one side & 1 on other.

why?, should i plug both connectors or just one?

[Amir.php]

Check whether you actually ARE running USB 2.0 "high speed" mode.
Open Device Manager, choose "devices by connection" view, and then unfold all USB to see whether the drive attaches to an "enhanced" controller or not.
If it's on a "universal" or "open" USB controller, then it's running USB 1.x.

If you've only got the ports running at USB1 speed, you need to install Windows XP Service Pack 1 or 2.
This will enable your ports to run as USB2 ones.
I'd go for SP2, its got quite a few improvements over SP1 like a better firewall and an additional 9 months of bug fixes and patches Good old Microsoft.