How To Relate IDE Controller To Physical Drive?

[(PeteCresswell)]

I am troubleshooting an excessive CPU usage problem - almost
totally unencumbered by any real knowledge.

Thanks to Process Explorer (thinks again to Cheng and Tim) I have
discovered that Interrupts are going out of sight - as in 50%
CPU.

Googling around, I see that a common source of this is Windows
automatically downgrading a drive from DMA access to PIO because
of too many errors from the drive.

I've got six SATA ('data') drives and one IDE ('system') drive.

I pulled the DVD drive and the Brand-X SATA card it was attached
to and I pulled the video card so that I *think* all that's left
are the SATA drives and IDE drive.

When I go into Device Manager, I see:

Primary IDE Channel #1 in list: Device 0 = Ultra DMA Mode 5
Device 1 = "Not Applicable"

Primary IDE Channel #2 in list: Device 0 = Ultra DMA Mode 5
Device 1 = Ultra DMA Mode 5

Primary IDE Channel #3 in list: Device 0 = Ultra DMA Mode 6
Device 1 = "Not Applicable"

Secondary IDE Channel #1 in list: Device 0 = Ultra DMA Mode 5
Device 1 = "Not Applicable"

Secondary IDE Channel #2 in list: Device 0 = PIO Mode <========
Device 1 = Ultra DMA Mode 5

Secondary IDE Channel #3 in list: Device 0 = "Not Applicable"
Device 1 = "Not Applicable"

Looking at the mobo (Asus P5Q SE2), it looks to me like there is
only one IDE connector.

Since I have only a single IDE drive, does the above info
implicate it with no doubt?

Or could some aspect of the SATA setup be masquerading as a
"Secondary IDE Channel"?

 

[Paul]

I am troubleshooting an excessive CPU usage problem - almost
totally unencumbered by any real knowledge.

Thanks to Process Explorer (thinks again to Cheng and Tim) I have
discovered that Interrupts are going out of sight - as in 50%
CPU.

Googling around, I see that a common source of this is Windows
automatically downgrading a drive from DMA access to PIO because
of too many errors from the drive.

I've got six SATA ('data') drives and one IDE ('system') drive.

I pulled the DVD drive and the Brand-X SATA card it was attached
to and I pulled the video card so that I *think* all that's left
are the SATA drives and IDE drive.

When I go into Device Manager, I see:

Primary IDE Channel #1 in list: Device 0 = Ultra DMA Mode 5
Device 1 = "Not Applicable"

Primary IDE Channel #2 in list: Device 0 = Ultra DMA Mode 5
Device 1 = Ultra DMA Mode 5

Primary IDE Channel #3 in list: Device 0 = Ultra DMA Mode 6
Device 1 = "Not Applicable"

Secondary IDE Channel #1 in list: Device 0 = Ultra DMA Mode 5
Device 1 = "Not Applicable"

Secondary IDE Channel #2 in list: Device 0 = PIO Mode <========
Device 1 = Ultra DMA Mode 5

Secondary IDE Channel #3 in list: Device 0 = "Not Applicable"
Device 1 = "Not Applicable"

Looking at the mobo (Asus P5Q SE2), it looks to me like there is
only one IDE connector.

Since I have only a single IDE drive, does the above info
implicate it with no doubt?

Or could some aspect of the SATA setup be masquerading as a
"Secondary IDE Channel"?

Try the following in Device Manager.

Right now, I'm on an ICH9R motherboard, with six SATA ports
on the Southbridge, plus a Jmicron chip controlling a single IDE cable.
In IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, I can see

Intel ICH9 Family 2 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 2 - 2926
Intel ICH9R/DO/DH 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 1 - 2920
Primary IDE Channel
Primary IDE Channel
Primary IDE Channel
Secondary IDE Channel
Secondary IDE Channel
Secondary IDE Channel
Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller

Now, if I do properties on each, and look at the Details:Hardware Ids, I see

Intel ICH9 Family 2 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 2 - 2926 8086-2926
Intel ICH9R/DO/DH 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 1 - 2920 8086-2920
Primary IDE Channel Intel 2926
Primary IDE Channel Intel 2920
Primary IDE Channel 197b-2368
Secondary IDE Channel Intel 2926
Secondary IDE Channel Intel 2920
Secondary IDE Channel 197b-2368
Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller 197b-2368

Rearranging this into groups, I would get a 4 port SATA controller (with only
two ports listed), a 2 port SATA controller, and a 2 drive IDE controller.

Intel ICH9R/DO/DH 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 1 - 2920 8086-2920
Primary IDE Channel Intel 2920
Secondary IDE Channel Intel 2920
x
x

Intel ICH9 Family 2 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 2 - 2926 8086-2926
Primary IDE Channel Intel 2926
Secondary IDE Channel Intel 2926

Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller 197b-2368
Primary IDE Channel 197b-2368
Secondary IDE Channel 197b-2368

The latter group, are on a Jmicron JMB368, and really are Master/Slave
on an IDE cable. The other four (of six max) are SATA drives. I think
my BIOS has them set to "Native" but not compatible. Native is supposed
to make up to six SATA drives appear in PCI space, as offsets to a PCI BAR.

I'm only showing you that, to show potentially how they're grouped in
terms of the hardware.

*******

If you want a test case to try, use HDTune from hdtune.com

http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe

Run the benchmark, on your drives one at a time. The drive delivering
4-8MB/sec transfer rate or so, is the one in PIO mode. As far as I know,
the order the disks appear in HDTune, is the same as the order of
disks in Disk Management.

You can get out of PIO mode, using the "workaround" section of this article.
You'll return to PIO mode again later, if the system sees enough errors
to "gear down" that port. So if your hardware problem is persistent, you'll
end up right back where you started.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

You can use the HDTune "SMART" tab, to review the SMART statistics, and
"see if the drive is in trouble" with respect to its internal statistics.
That is how you get an early warning that the drive is in trouble.

Paul

 

[Paul]

Try the following in Device Manager.

Right now, I'm on an ICH9R motherboard, with six SATA ports
on the Southbridge, plus a Jmicron chip controlling a single IDE cable.
In IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, I can see

Intel ICH9 Family 2 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 2 - 2926
Intel ICH9R/DO/DH 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 1 - 2920
Primary IDE Channel
Primary IDE Channel
Primary IDE Channel
Secondary IDE Channel
Secondary IDE Channel
Secondary IDE Channel
Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller

Now, if I do properties on each, and look at the Details:Hardware Ids, I
see

Intel ICH9 Family 2 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 2 - 2926
8086-2926
Intel ICH9R/DO/DH 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 1 - 2920
8086-2920
Primary IDE Channel Intel 2926
Primary IDE Channel Intel 2920
Primary IDE Channel 197b-2368
Secondary IDE Channel Intel 2926
Secondary IDE Channel Intel 2920
Secondary IDE Channel 197b-2368
Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller 197b-2368

Rearranging this into groups, I would get a 4 port SATA controller (with
only
two ports listed), a 2 port SATA controller, and a 2 drive IDE controller.

Intel ICH9R/DO/DH 4 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 1 - 2920
8086-2920
Primary IDE Channel Intel 2920
Secondary IDE Channel Intel 2920
x
x

Intel ICH9 Family 2 port Serial ATA Storage Controller 2 - 2926
8086-2926
Primary IDE Channel Intel 2926
Secondary IDE Channel Intel 2926

Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller 197b-2368
Primary IDE Channel 197b-2368
Secondary IDE Channel 197b-2368

The latter group, are on a Jmicron JMB368, and really are Master/Slave
on an IDE cable. The other four (of six max) are SATA drives. I think
my BIOS has them set to "Native" but not compatible. Native is supposed
to make up to six SATA drives appear in PCI space, as offsets to a PCI BAR.

I'm only showing you that, to show potentially how they're grouped in
terms of the hardware.

*******

If you want a test case to try, use HDTune from hdtune.com

http://www.hdtune.com/files/hdtune_255.exe

Run the benchmark, on your drives one at a time. The drive delivering
4-8MB/sec transfer rate or so, is the one in PIO mode. As far as I know,
the order the disks appear in HDTune, is the same as the order of
disks in Disk Management.

You can get out of PIO mode, using the "workaround" section of this
article.
You'll return to PIO mode again later, if the system sees enough errors
to "gear down" that port. So if your hardware problem is persistent, you'll
end up right back where you started.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

You can use the HDTune "SMART" tab, to review the SMART statistics, and
"see if the drive is in trouble" with respect to its internal statistics.
That is how you get an early warning that the drive is in trouble.

Paul

It occurs to me, that what I'm seeing in Device Manager, isn't exactly
right. The JMB368 only has one IDE cable, so it should have Primary Master
and Primary Slave, rather than Primary and Secondary. So whatever they're
doing, isn't as descriptive as it might be.

You can get equally amusing entries in the BIOS screen, where disks are
detected. The labeling there might be closer to what I'm thinking of,
as the right way to do it (if there is a right way). SATA drives don't
have masters and slaves, so shouldn't need any labels except a port number
of some sort. IDE cables still have Master and Slave drives, so that is
still a useful label. If an IDE chip had two ribbon cables, one
could be Primary, the other Secondary, and that would make sense.

Paul

 

[Tim Meddick]

When you ask "How To Relate IDE Controller To Physical Drive?", is it that
you want to know which physical drive is connected to which IDE channel?

If I got that right, then why not simply, in Device Manager, click on
"View" from the top menus, and choose "Devices by connection"...

Then, all you do is click on the + sign next to the icon for your PC (to
expand that branch) and then again on the + sign next to the icons for :

+ Microsoft ACPI Compliant System
+ PCI Bus
+ (Whatever the make /model of..) Storage Controller

....and finally, on :

+ Primary IDE Channel
+ Secondary IDE Channel

....under which you will see the respective drives, be they optical or HDs,
that are connected to either.

An example picture to illustrate what I mean...
http://twitpic.com/2lz4xb

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Paul:

It occurs to me, that what I'm seeing in Device Manager, isn't exactly
right. The JMB368 only has one IDE cable, so it should have Primary Master
and Primary Slave, rather than Primary and Secondary. So whatever they're
doing, isn't as descriptive as it might be.

You can get equally amusing entries in the BIOS screen, where disks are
detected. The labeling there might be closer to what I'm thinking of,
as the right way to do it (if there is a right way). SATA drives don't
have masters and slaves, so shouldn't need any labels except a port number
of some sort. IDE cables still have Master and Slave drives, so that is
still a useful label. If an IDE chip had two ribbon cables, one
could be Primary, the other Secondary, and that would make sense.

I'm on it. Thanks for all the time spent.

I struggled with the Device Manager stuff and then hopped over to
HD Tune.

Seems to me like HD Tune holds the promise of cutting right to
the chase.

On five of the drives, I see "Ultra DMA CRC Error Count Data = 0.
On the #1 drive, I see Data = 29 - but haven't decided if that is
a red herring or not.

On the #3 drive HD Tune seems to hang. I can't even kill it with
Process Explorer and I have to re-boot the server each time.

I have a feeling that if I fool around long enough, HD Tune is
going to tell me that one of those six drives is flaky.

I've done the "Error Scan (quick)" on each one.

Haven't verified active access method on that suspicious #3 drive
yet.

Either way I'll do the complete error scan just on GPs. If it's
Ultra DMA 5 like the others, I'll fall back and re-group - and
maybe try applying that MS hotfix that makes the algorithm for
downgrading from DMA 5 to PIO less severe (I think it changes it
from six CRC checks total to 6 consecutive checks).

I've got a new 2 TB drive coming from NewEgg - on the assumption
that it will turn out tb a drive issue.... and besides, I can
always use an extra drive... -)

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Tim Meddick:

If I got that right, then why not simply, in Device Manager, click on
"View" from the top menus, and choose "Devices by connection"...

Then, all you do is click on the + sign next to the icon for your PC (to
expand that branch) and then again on the + sign next to the icons for :

That's helpful - I never even thought about "View" options.

But I still had the problem of Windows referring to my drives by
their model number instead of SNs - and I have three of the same
model. One controller | Many Drives.

I started down the HotFix path, but got intimidated by/lost in
all the boilerplate - and the penalty for failure seems severe.

Instead, I did the workaround where you un-install the offending
"Secondary IDE Channel" (still not knowing which disc connected
to it is problematic) and then let Windows re-install it -
re-initializing the transfer mode or whatever to UDMA.

That *seems* to have done the trick - at least temporarily.
Interrupts are holding at less than 10% CPU and Device Manager
says both Device 0 and Device 1 on that channel are, indeed,
using UDMA. Compared to my backup server, though, 10% isn't all
that wonderful either.... but at least processes aren't hanging
every time I try to do something.

Also, HD Tune is not hanging when I try to point it at that third
drive. I'm running the slower complete error scan right now.

Gonna leave it overnight and hope....

Either way, my plan is to replace the suspect drive with the new
one once it arrives and figure out what to do with it later -
when it's not fouling up my WSH box any more.

 

[Tim Meddick]

Then, in Device Manager (in normal "view by type" mode), look under the
"Disk drives" item and at the drives that are listed there - it will give
you their serial numbers.

Then, in the "Properties" for each drive, click on the "Volumes" tab and
then click on the "Populate" button.

You should now be able to work out which serial number goes with which
drive-letter (volume).

So, knowing that, go back to "view by connection" - locate the Storage
Controller again, and now you will know which serial number is associated
with what volume / drive-letters...

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Tim Meddick:

Then, in Device Manager (in normal "view by type" mode), look under the
"Disk drives" item and at the drives that are listed there - it will give
you their serial numbers.

Then, in the "Properties" for each drive, click on the "Volumes" tab and
then click on the "Populate" button.

You should now be able to work out which serial number goes with which
drive-letter (volume).

So, knowing that, go back to "view by connection" - locate the Storage
Controller again, and now you will know which serial number is associated
with what volume / drive-letters...

Good stuff. Thanks!

I'm going to start another thread looking for a utility to do
that. Seems like if I can do it, a little utility can to it
.....

 

[Tim Meddick]

Try the tiny [free] command-line utility from Sysinternals (Microsoft)
called "devcon.exe".

With it, you can search for attached classes of hardware attached to your
system.

Download "Devcon.exe" (Winzip compressed self-extractor setup) (78Kb)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/1/f/11f7dd10-272d-4cd2-896f-9ce67f3e0240/devcon.exe

*NB When you've "unzipped" the contents, use the copy of devcon.exe that's
in the i386 folder unless you're running 64-bit WinXP, in which case use
the one in the ia64 folder instead.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

Per Tim Meddick:

Then, in Device Manager (in normal "view by type" mode), look under the
"Disk drives" item and at the drives that are listed there - it will give
you their serial numbers.

Then, in the "Properties" for each drive, click on the "Volumes" tab and
then click on the "Populate" button.

You should now be able to work out which serial number goes with which
drive-letter (volume).

So, knowing that, go back to "view by connection" - locate the Storage
Controller again, and now you will know which serial number is
associated
with what volume / drive-letters...

Good stuff. Thanks!

I'm going to start another thread looking for a utility to do
that. Seems like if I can do it, a little utility can to it
....

 

[Tim Meddick]

P.S But, sorry, it won't tell you what volumes (drive-letters) are
associated with any HD / cd/dvd drive devices it finds....

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[Tim Meddick]

P.P.S. However, if you start the MMC console - Disk Management (by typing
: DISKMGMT.MSC ...into the "Run" box).

Ignore the upper explorer-style drive-list, and instead, refer to the stack
of boxes below.

Each box represents, at a glance, a physical drive with it's description at
the far left hand side. The rest of the box to the right of it's
description are representations of the volumes (drive-letters) that
currently exist on each piece of physical hardware.

I tink this may be more like what you were after...

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I am troubleshooting an excessive CPU usage problem - almost
totally unencumbered by any real knowledge.

Thanks to Process Explorer (thinks again to Cheng and Tim) I have
discovered that Interrupts are going out of sight - as in 50%
CPU.

Googling around, I see that a common source of this is Windows
automatically downgrading a drive from DMA access to PIO because
of too many errors from the drive.

Ah, yes, I've encountered this before. There's a Microsoft support doc
on it:

IDE ATA and ATAPI disks use PIO mode after multiple time-out or CRC
errors occur
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472

They list a bunch of hotfixes and patches that fix this. That's
interesting, but you should ignore it and go straight to the "More
Information" section, which lists some changes you can make to the
Registry. After you reboot, then your bad drive should be back on DMA
mode again.

After that you should download a copy of Hard Disk Sentinel, which
analyses SMART data from your drives and gives you a report about the
condition of your drives. Even rates your drives for a quick comparison.

Yousuf Khan