Drive shows up as PIO mode only

[Luis ORTEGA]

I'm trying to find out what could be going wrong with my drive setup. I just
put together another computer from various parts, all of which worked OK
before.
But the 30 GB drive on the secondary master will only list as PIO mode in
the device manager.
I used a QDI mainboard that had previously handled 40 and 60 GB drives in
ultra dma modes.
I have a 20 GB C drive and a CD drive on the primary controller and both
show up as dma drives (ultra dma mode 5 and multi-word dma mode 2)and have
only the 30 GB drive as the master on the secondary controller, which I want
to use for video, but if it only shows up as a PIO mode drive, I know it
won't be able to handle it.
It's a windows XP home with SP1 setup and I have not yet installed any
software (just built it today) until I get the drive problem worked out.
The drive is the only component that I haven't used before since it came
from the IT department at my school, but it's a 30 GB maxtor and it's
unlikely that any 30 GB drive could be so ancient that it wasn't dma.
The motherboard has a VIA chipset and I installed the latest Hyperion
drivers just in case that it was the culprit, but that made no difference,
and anyway, the other drives on the primary controller were being recognized
as ultra dma already.
The cable is an 80 pin ultra dma cable.
I just can't figure out what could be causing it to see the drive as PIO
mode only.
I've built many computers before, so I'm not new at this. I tried changing
some options in the bios but nothing has made any difference.
I have a little 6 GB drive at home that I will bring in to try on the
controller on Monday just to check if it's the 30 GB drive at fault, but I
would appreciate it if anyone can please give me some advice or suggestions
to try.
Thanks a lot.

 

[Rich Barry]

Luis, go into Device Manager>IDE/ATAPI Controllers>expand and rt click on
the Secondary IDE controller. Choose Uninstall and restart. Let XP reinstall
the it. Also remove the CD drive from the Primary IDE controller. If both
hard drives show up as DMA then try adding the CD drive back into the
configuration. Maybe as slave on the Secondary.

 

[Wesley Vogel]

DMA Reverts to PIO
http://www.michna.com/kb/WxDMA.htm

 

[Luis ORTEGA]

Thanks a lot Wes.
I printed out the articles and will do this first thing on Monday.
I will report back on it.

 

[Rock]

I'm trying to find out what could be going wrong with my drive setup. I just
put together another computer from various parts, all of which worked OK
before.
But the 30 GB drive on the secondary master will only list as PIO mode in
the device manager.
I used a QDI mainboard that had previously handled 40 and 60 GB drives in
ultra dma modes.
I have a 20 GB C drive and a CD drive on the primary controller and both
show up as dma drives (ultra dma mode 5 and multi-word dma mode 2)and have
only the 30 GB drive as the master on the secondary controller, which I want
to use for video, but if it only shows up as a PIO mode drive, I know it
won't be able to handle it.
It's a windows XP home with SP1 setup and I have not yet installed any
software (just built it today) until I get the drive problem worked out.
The drive is the only component that I haven't used before since it came
from the IT department at my school, but it's a 30 GB maxtor and it's
unlikely that any 30 GB drive could be so ancient that it wasn't dma.
The motherboard has a VIA chipset and I installed the latest Hyperion
drivers just in case that it was the culprit, but that made no difference,
and anyway, the other drives on the primary controller were being recognized
as ultra dma already.
The cable is an 80 pin ultra dma cable.
I just can't figure out what could be causing it to see the drive as PIO
mode only.
I've built many computers before, so I'm not new at this. I tried changing
some options in the bios but nothing has made any difference.
I have a little 6 GB drive at home that I will bring in to try on the
controller on Monday just to check if it's the 30 GB drive at fault, but I
would appreciate it if anyone can please give me some advice or suggestions
to try.
Thanks a lot.

What about putting the second hard drive as slave on the primary channel
and moving the CD to the secondary channel as Master.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I'm trying to find out what could be going wrong with my drive setup. I just
put together another computer from various parts, all of which worked OK
before.
But the 30 GB drive on the secondary master will only list as PIO mode in
the device manager.
I used a QDI mainboard that had previously handled 40 and 60 GB drives in
ultra dma modes.
I have a 20 GB C drive and a CD drive on the primary controller and both
show up as dma drives (ultra dma mode 5 and multi-word dma mode 2)and have
only the 30 GB drive as the master on the secondary controller, which I want
to use for video, but if it only shows up as a PIO mode drive, I know it
won't be able to handle it.
It's a windows XP home with SP1 setup and I have not yet installed any
software (just built it today) until I get the drive problem worked out.
The drive is the only component that I haven't used before since it came
from the IT department at my school, but it's a 30 GB maxtor and it's
unlikely that any 30 GB drive could be so ancient that it wasn't dma.
The motherboard has a VIA chipset and I installed the latest Hyperion
drivers just in case that it was the culprit, but that made no difference,
and anyway, the other drives on the primary controller were being recognized
as ultra dma already.
The cable is an 80 pin ultra dma cable.

One thought: If this is a three head UDMA cable you must have the drive
on the end plug, with the one in the middle unused (or for a slave
device). Having a floating, unterminated end of cable can cause
reflections of signal and an error rate that goes OTT. Also once you
have corrected any fault resulting in PIO, you need to remove the master
level controller in Device manager, then reboot for PnP to try again. If
onto PIO it will stick there and not come back of itself

 

[Luis ORTEGA]

Wes, I tried a lot of stuff and nothing worked. I think that perhaps the
secondary controller is damaged.
I decided just to put both drives on the primary controller and the cd rom
drive on the secondary controller, so that the pio mode doesn't hurt the
hard drive performance.
I still have no idea what is wrong, and the only way to tell for sure would
be to replace the secondary controller, but the dealer said it would cost
about 40 pounds and I'm not able to do that right now.
Thanks a lot for your advice, though.