C
Charles Elliott
My problem is that one of the three hard drives (IDE Secondary Channel
Master) is detected by the O/S (Win XP w/SP2) as PIO Mode 4 instead of Ultra
DMA 5. I originally noticed this when Nero tested all the logical hard
drives in the system to determine where to put its cache, and found the
logical drives on this hard disk to transfer data about 1/20th as fast as
the other logical hard disks (about 2.5 versus 50 MBps, as I recall).
This machine is tri-boot: Win NT 4.6a, Win2K, and WinXP. Over the weekend
I had to boot into Win2K to run a backup program. Just on a hunch, I
checked with Win2K's device manager and the drive was listed as Ultra DMA 5.
I suspected this was so because I had taken the drive to another computer
and the BIOS splash screen on that machine indicated the drive had been
detected as Ultra DMA 5.
So the problem appears to be that WinXP w/SP2 is detecting the drive as PIO
Mode 4 but other O/Ss on the same machine and other computers detect it as
Ultra DMA mode 5. I tried changing the drop-down box entry in device
Manager (Advanced settings) from "DMA if available" to "PIO only" and back.
That worked for the CD ROM drive on the same channel, but not for the hard
drive. The cable is brand new. I also tried that same experiment with the CD
ROM drive out of the system, but no change.
WinXP will downgrade a drive from Ultra DMA to PIO Mode if it detects errors
on the drive (according to
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/IDE-DMA.mspx), but when it does
it logs the errors in Event Log. My event logs show no errors.
I feel certain the problem is in WinXP. I think it began when I used that
channel to test a DVD burner to see if it worked. Before I tested the
burner, I am almost sure the hard drive was OK; now WinXP will not detect
the hard drive as Ultra DMA 5. But it is not the drive; obviously the
drive is OK. Do you know what the problem could be?
Charles Elliott
Master) is detected by the O/S (Win XP w/SP2) as PIO Mode 4 instead of Ultra
DMA 5. I originally noticed this when Nero tested all the logical hard
drives in the system to determine where to put its cache, and found the
logical drives on this hard disk to transfer data about 1/20th as fast as
the other logical hard disks (about 2.5 versus 50 MBps, as I recall).
This machine is tri-boot: Win NT 4.6a, Win2K, and WinXP. Over the weekend
I had to boot into Win2K to run a backup program. Just on a hunch, I
checked with Win2K's device manager and the drive was listed as Ultra DMA 5.
I suspected this was so because I had taken the drive to another computer
and the BIOS splash screen on that machine indicated the drive had been
detected as Ultra DMA 5.
So the problem appears to be that WinXP w/SP2 is detecting the drive as PIO
Mode 4 but other O/Ss on the same machine and other computers detect it as
Ultra DMA mode 5. I tried changing the drop-down box entry in device
Manager (Advanced settings) from "DMA if available" to "PIO only" and back.
That worked for the CD ROM drive on the same channel, but not for the hard
drive. The cable is brand new. I also tried that same experiment with the CD
ROM drive out of the system, but no change.
WinXP will downgrade a drive from Ultra DMA to PIO Mode if it detects errors
on the drive (according to
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/IDE-DMA.mspx), but when it does
it logs the errors in Event Log. My event logs show no errors.
I feel certain the problem is in WinXP. I think it began when I used that
channel to test a DVD burner to see if it worked. Before I tested the
burner, I am almost sure the hard drive was OK; now WinXP will not detect
the hard drive as Ultra DMA 5. But it is not the drive; obviously the
drive is OK. Do you know what the problem could be?
Charles Elliott