Cannot enable DMA on a WD Drive. Always in PIO Mode

[M. Mike]

I have a Maxtor drive as master and a Western Digital WD2500JBRTL
250GB drive as slave. The Maxtor drive is in Ultra DMA Mode. The WD
drive is set as follows - Transfer Mode = DMA if available, Current
Transfer Mode = PIO only.

My current disk is performing very poorly at 2MB/sec with no data on
it and I believe it is due to DMA not set.

Please advice. Model Number: WD2500JBRTL

 

[Rod Speed]

I have a Maxtor drive as master and a Western Digital WD2500JBRTL
250GB drive as slave. The Maxtor drive is in Ultra DMA Mode. The WD
drive is set as follows - Transfer Mode = DMA if available, Current
Transfer Mode = PIO only.

My current disk is performing very poorly at 2MB/sec
with no data on it and I believe it is due to DMA not set.

Please advice. Model Number: WD2500JBRTL

Thats normally the result of the NT/2L/XP family
deciding that there are too many errors seen with the
drive so it disables DMA for the safety of your data.

Check the error logs to see what they say about that.

Obviously try a new ribbon cable because thats cheap and
run WD's diagnostics on the drive to see if its the drive.

 

[M. Mike]

Thanks for the reply.

Any idea how to re-enable DMA then? Would reformatting the drive help?

 

[Rod Speed]

Any idea how to re-enable DMA then?

Sorry, should have included that in the original.

Try deleting the IDE controller in the device manager
and rebooting. That should reset the PIO flag.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472&product=winxp

 

[M. Mike]

Where would the error log be? I tried all the recommendations you
suggested short of a new cable but it is still stuck in PIO mode.

 

[Rod Speed]

Where would the error log be?

Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Event Viewer.

I tried all the recommendations you suggested short
of a new cable but it is still stuck in PIO mode.

Certainly worth trying a new cable then, they arent
expensive and do die, basically because of the
way the connectors are crimped onto the ribbon.
It isnt hard to damage them when the connector
is crimped on or when its moved between drives if
you're a bit rough getting it off a drive where its tight.