Forced PIO Mode for Hard Drive

[Frank Pyatt]

Hi folks:

I've exhausted my ideas and need some help. Here's the story:

I had a 40gb Maxtor drive in my Win2000 (SP4) computer running in UDMA Mode
5. I bought a 160gb Seagate, cloned the drive using Norton Ghost 2003, and
now the cloned drive is slow. The new drive has a total of four primary
partitions. I checked the device manager and Windows reports that the drive
is set to PIO mode. My BIOS recognizes the drive as UDMA5 and the Seatools
software from Seagate reports that the drive default is set to UDMA5. I am
led to believe that Windows is setting the mode to PIO on startup.

I have researched this and have found several references to the mode being
misrepresented in Windows and the fix was to install SP2....well, I'm
running SP4 so I doubt that is the problem.

I would appreciate it if anyone could help or point me in the right
direction.

Cheers.

 

[Colon Terminus]

Hi folks:

I've exhausted my ideas and need some help. Here's the story:

I had a 40gb Maxtor drive in my Win2000 (SP4) computer running in UDMA Mode
5. I bought a 160gb Seagate, cloned the drive using Norton Ghost 2003, and
now the cloned drive is slow. The new drive has a total of four primary
partitions. I checked the device manager and Windows reports that the drive
is set to PIO mode. My BIOS recognizes the drive as UDMA5 and the Seatools
software from Seagate reports that the drive default is set to UDMA5. I am
led to believe that Windows is setting the mode to PIO on startup.

I have researched this and have found several references to the mode being
misrepresented in Windows and the fix was to install SP2....well, I'm
running SP4 so I doubt that is the problem.

I would appreciate it if anyone could help or point me in the right
direction.

Cheers.

Is EnableBigLBA set in the registry?
It made the difference for me.

 

[Frank Pyatt]

Is EnableBigLBA set in the registry?
It made the difference for me.

Hi, and thanks for the response. I adjusted the settings to allow the LBA.
I see the whole drive, it's the issue with the PIO mode that I just can't
seem to figure out...

 

[Eric McG]

Verify that you're using an 80-pin conductor cable on the IDE cable for this
drive.

See this link for more info:
http://www.intel.com/support/platform/pentium4/ata100.htm

 

[Frank Pyatt]

Hi Eric:

It's the same cable that I used with the old drive....it is an 80-pin
shielded cable....my old drive was running in UDMA mode 5 as well.....I do
suspect the OS....

Thanks,
Frank

 

[Frank Pyatt]

Okay, I need to try the resolution outllined in KB817472 which entails
installing a new version of atapi.sys (pre-SP5) and making a change in the
registry. However, because my product is OEM (legal and registered), MS
tells me to go to the small computer shop where the machine was built for
help. Of course, the computer shop says go to MS......

Enough of the finger pointing already!!!!! Can anyone direct me to where I
can obtain the following file?

Date Time Version Size File name
----------------------------------------------------
28-Apr-2003 17:38 5.0.2195.6741 86,896 Atapi.sys


This PIO transfer mode is killing me!!!!

Thanks,
Frank

 

[Eric McG]

I found this using Google. There's a download link in the top section of this
page:

http://www.pubforum.net/Q/W2K/Q817472.htm

Good luck.

 

[Frank Pyatt]

Hello Eric, and thank you for the link. I tried google, yahoo, and
metacrawler and couldn't find a download anyhwere.

Anyway, it didn't work. Now I'm at a loss.....no matter what I do, that
drive will not boot using a transfer mode of anything other than PIO. Even
my two burners on the secandary channel are running in UDMA2.....this is
frustrating.

Can a damaged MBR or partition table cause this? I would appreciate any
final suggestions before I wipe and rebuild....nasty.

Thanks,
Frank

 

[Eric McG]

I don't think the MBR has any effect on this condition.

Here's my last shot: Again referring to the IDE cable, you stated that a 40-pin,
80 conductor cable is being used, but did you verify that it was oriented
correctly? The blue connector should be connected to the mobo, black to the
Master and Gray to the Slave. A backwards installation could cause the problem
you're having.

Good luck.

 

[Frank Pyatt]

Hi Eric:

The cables are all oriented correctly. I popped out the drive and put in my
old Maxtor that it replaced and it came up as UDMA5 so I put the new drive
on the master of the secondary and it came up as PIO on that channel. That
is the channel that was previously running my burner in UDMA2. I think I'm
going to wipe the drive and use Seagate's software to prep and partition the
disk, then again use Ghost to recreate the partitions.

I appreciate your help.

Frank.