Hardrive will not run in DMA mode

[Gilbert Baron]

I had a drive crash on my smaller system. It was a 30 gig and I think
ATA100. I replaced tit with a 250 gig ATA 100 but the new drive
repeatedly falls back to Programmed IO.
I reset it to DMA but it falls back during boot. I get timeout errors
and after 6 of these windows leaves it in PIO until you reset it
again.

Any reason this should happen? It is NOT the drive as it works
perfectly in another system. Is there any way to try to force this.

My system is VERY VERY VERY slow now. I don;'t know if that is the
reason but boot up takes over 2 minutes.

I am running with 512 Meg Ram an AMD 1200 processor, Windows XP Home.

 

[Jim]

I had a drive crash on my smaller system. It was a 30 gig and I think
ATA100. I replaced tit with a 250 gig ATA 100 but the new drive
repeatedly falls back to Programmed IO.
I reset it to DMA but it falls back during boot. I get timeout errors
and after 6 of these windows leaves it in PIO until you reset it
again.

Any reason this should happen? It is NOT the drive as it works
perfectly in another system. Is there any way to try to force this.

My system is VERY VERY VERY slow now. I don;'t know if that is the
reason but boot up takes over 2 minutes.

I am running with 512 Meg Ram an AMD 1200 processor, Windows XP Home.

Windows falls back to PIO mode when there are excessive errors somewhere in
the path between the device and the rest of the computer. Once this mode is
set, Windows will not allow you to change to DMA.

The solution is to remove the IDE driver for the channel (not the one for
the disk).
Then you shutdown and reboot.
During the bootstrap operation, Windows will reload the driver from the
\i386 folder.
This replacement driver will accept DMA until it receives enough errors.

As you have checked the drive, the only remaining things are the cable and
the hardware interface on the motherboard. You can, of course, replace the
cable, but fixing the motherboard probably requires a new one.
Jim

 

[Gil Baron]

the hardware interface on the motherboard. You can, of course, replace the
cable, but fixing the motherboard probably requires a new one.
Jim

I thought as much, too bad. I never get errors in PIO but wonder why my load time is so slow? PIO is not that much slower. I would bet its doing retries. I guess I should try another drive and if it too fails it is likely the MB. Not sure the price of one is worth it?