Choppy transfer to second hard drive

G

Guest

I have been working on this for a while--when I transfer my Sony DCR-TRV250
via firewire to my C drive, the transfer is fine and the quality is great.
The problem, my C drive doesn't have any space left, but my F drive
does--whenever I try to transfer directly to my F drive the quality is choppy
and horrible! I have cleaned and defraged both drives and have set them up
to where both my primary IDE channel and secondary are DMA if available. I
have set up my drives as follows
Primary IDE Channel
IDE-0 --- Primary (O/S) drive set as "Master"
IDE-1 --- Second hard drive set as "Slave"
Secondary IDE Channel
IDE-0 --- CD/Rewriter or DVD/Rewriter set as "Master"
IDE-1 --- DVD player set as "Slave"

Just wondering if anyone has any ideas how to fix this. I am lost.
thanks
 
G

Guest

My primary IDE channel device 0 is Ultra DMA Mode 2
primary IDE channel device 1 is PIO
secondary IDE channel device 0 is Ultra DMA mode 2
secondary IDE channel device 1 is Ultra DMA mode 2
Maybe this is the problem?
the 2nd harddrive was purchased in the last couple years and I think the
speed is 7200
Thank you again
 
G

Guest

I had the same problem with my Dell when I installed a new 2nd hard drive.
THe second drive was PIO mode and first was Ultra 2. Since I was backing up
my videos they looked horrible when played from drive 2. I might not have
this exactly right from memory but I had to go into the BIOS and toggle the
second drive to auto. It was set as off. After setting to auto, both drives
became Ultra DMA 5. I can't remember exactly where in the BIOS but its in
there. Plus with my Dell 8300 it was recommended for the drives to be cable
select, not master/slave as one would expect. Check your manuals to see that
those settings are correct as well.

Hope this helps,
Steve
 
G

Guest

I have my primary IDE channel 1 set to DMA if available but it is only
running PIO--I don't know how to get it to change.
When I drag a .avi from C drive to F it runs poorly too, although it looks
great on C.
I do shut down most everything, except I have never turned off the DSL. It
seems like I need to get the IDE channel 1, which is my F drive to run DMA.
Do I have the IDE channels configured correctly?
Thanks
 
R

Rehan

DMA mode 2 is bad news... It should be atleast mode 5 or more for good
performance.
 
G

Guest

I still think you need to go into the BIOS. You set drive 0 to DMA if
available and drive 1 is at PIO. What happens is that drive 0 will actually
slow down because of the extreme slow speed of drive 1. Ultra 2 may be quick
enough to watch video. The reason you can't choose DMA if availble or the
reason it may not be available is because in the BIOS the setting for the
second drive might be "off" . Again if you installed this second drive in a
DELL the switch settings might also need to be cable select.

Go into the BIOS and see what it has for the settings of the second drive or
secondary IDE channel, I forgot how its listed.

Its exactly what happened to me. I read all about how drives will slow down
(Western Digital) when too many consecutive call errors are encountered.
There is even a hotfix for it. But the simple solution was going into the
BIOS and changing the setting from OFF to AUTO. Then I was able to go into
the desktop settings and see that they both jumped to DMA 5.

At least look and tell me if that was or wasn't the problem. It doesn't look
from the thread like you tried this.

Steve
 
G

Guest

I meant to say below, check the setting for the primary channel drive 0, not
secondary. I went through all the frustration you are going through. I
finally found the answer on the DELL website I believe. What really ticked me
off about the whole thing is that manual tells you exactly how to install a
second drive, how to move the cables and the first drive to a new slot, how
to set the jumpers to cable select not master/slave. But could they put one
more line in there that says, "Now turn PC on, go into BIOS and remove "OFF"
from Primary IDE Channel 1 by toggling to "Auto". NOOOO! It would have been
that simple and saved me days of frustration.

Then when I went back into the BIOS it recognized the drive and told me what
it was and its capacity. If yours is set to "OFF", although its working, it
can't be auto detected so as an unknown, the speed is set to the slowest.
 
G

Guest

YES! I went into BIOS and changed it as you suggested. Primary channel both
0 and 1 are running Ultra DMA mode 5. Secondary is running at Ultra 2 though
and I wonder if this will be a problem? I still have the jumpers as
master/slave. Do you think I need to change them to cable select? I will
see how this works in the meantime. Thank you so much. I would never have
figured this out on my own.
 
G

Guest

Glad to hear it! As far as I know the secondary channel (CD drives) run at
Ultra DMA 2. That's what mine are. You should be fine now. Its really the
transfer mode of the hard drives that matter and now you're set.
 

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