DMA setting on secondary IDE device

A

Arnado

After installing a second harddrive, I noticed it was very
slow. I noticed it was running PIO mode, instead of DMA.
After toying with it for awhile, I wasn't able to get it to
be anything other then PIO.

A friend told me he had the same problem, and when he put
the second drive as the master on the secondary ide
channel, it worked, and was able to be set to DMA.

A few tests later, I have both drives running in DMA, using
them both as master on primary and secondary ide channels.

The problem I have now, is that my cd-rw is slave on the
primary ide channel, and it will now only run in PIO mode.

The reason this is a problem, it is a 52x burner, worked
great before, now burns at around a max of 6 speed, which
is not going to work for me.

Does anyone know why I can't get it into DMA mode?

I have tried toggleing the settings in devman, as posted in
previous questions. I know it's not the problem where XP
has lowered it to PIO becuase of problems with the drive,
as just before moving the burner to the slave position, it
was working in dma mode just fine.

To me, what it looks like, is that XP is limiting any
secondary (slave) device to PIO mode.

Is this a problem with XP itself, or am I just missing
something?

Thanks,
Arnado
 
B

bbunny

Arnado wrote:

| After installing a second harddrive, I noticed it was very
| slow. I noticed it was running PIO mode, instead of DMA.
| After toying with it for awhile, I wasn't able to get it to
| be anything other then PIO.
|
| A friend told me he had the same problem, and when he put
| the second drive as the master on the secondary ide
| channel, it worked, and was able to be set to DMA.
|
| A few tests later, I have both drives running in DMA, using
| them both as master on primary and secondary ide channels.
|
| The problem I have now, is that my cd-rw is slave on the
| primary ide channel, and it will now only run in PIO mode.
|
| The reason this is a problem, it is a 52x burner, worked
| great before, now burns at around a max of 6 speed, which
| is not going to work for me.
|
| Does anyone know why I can't get it into DMA mode?
|
| I have tried toggleing the settings in devman, as posted in
| previous questions. I know it's not the problem where XP
| has lowered it to PIO becuase of problems with the drive,
| as just before moving the burner to the slave position, it
| was working in dma mode just fine.
|
| To me, what it looks like, is that XP is limiting any
| secondary (slave) device to PIO mode.
|
| Is this a problem with XP itself, or am I just missing
| something?


a) Is this an older mainboard or harddrives?
b) Are you setting the jumpers correctly?
c) Are you using 80 wire 40 pin cables?
 
A

Arnado

The motherboard is fairly new, all latest drivers installed.
All drives are capable of DMA, and I have been able to get them all to run
DMA, but not at the same time.
I'm using the same cables, and just changing the jumpers from slave to
master, or the other way around.
As long as they are the master drive on either channel, they run using DMA.
The problem is, the secondary device runs in PIO only.
 
L

Len

You might try a different data cable? If it is a problem only when you
connect to the Slave connector then that connector may be bad on the ribbon.
Have you tried setting the drives (both) to CS Cable Select. Final thought,
are either of the drives WD (Western Digital)? Sometimes the only way that
two drives will work on the same ribbon is if the Master has NO jumper
connected.

FWIW,
Len
 
A

Alex Nichol

Arnado said:
After installing a second harddrive, I noticed it was very
slow. I noticed it was running PIO mode, instead of DMA.
After toying with it for awhile, I wasn't able to get it to
be anything other then PIO.

A friend told me he had the same problem, and when he put
the second drive as the master on the secondary ide
channel, it worked, and was able to be set to DMA.

A few tests later, I have both drives running in DMA, using
them both as master on primary and secondary ide channels.

The problem I have now, is that my cd-rw is slave on the
primary ide channel, and it will now only run in PIO mode.

Be sure you have the 80 wire cables (into 40 pin plugs) and that the
master device is on the end connector with the slave in the middle. And
BTW the hard drives ought to work both in DMA in that arrangement.

Then make sure there is nothing in BIOS that is disabling DMA on the
channel.

Then in XP - Control Panel - System - Hardware - Device Manager and look
for IDE ATA/ATAPI Hard disk controllers, under it highlight the top
(principal) controller, and Action - Uninstall. Ok out and reboot the
machine (through Power off state) to let PnP start over
 
M

Mark Scheidell

Arnado,

I was having a similar problem. I went into my bios and the second hard
drive was not enabled. It is not necessary for the bios to recognize the
drive in order for XP to see it and use it.

After telling the bios to auto detect the slave on the primary IDE, then
WinXp was willing to put the slave into Ultra DMA Mode 5 instead of PIO.

Hope this helps you.

Mark.
 

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