PIO mode instead of DMA

[Jud McCranie]

Something happened to my CD-RW drive. It has gotten terribly slow. I
checked Device Manager, advanced settings, and "DMA if available" is on, but
below that it says "PIO". I'm pretty sure it used to be DMA. I've
uninstalled it from device manager, and let it detect it as new hardware a
couple of times, but it is PIO. Is there a way to force it to use DMA?

 

[Guest]

Delete that item from device manager. Then reboot. It
will reinstall the item using DMA mode.

 

[Jud McCranie]

You have to uninstall the controller (in the Device Manager) that the

drive is connected to and have it re-detected. Then the CD drive should
work in DMA mode again (at least until you reach the "six DMA errors
limit" again; see link above).

By "uninstall the controler", you mean the secondary IDE channel, right?
(Or the CD drive?)

I'll read that link.

 

[Mirko]

Yes, if the CD drive is connected to the secondary IDE channel, then
uninstall the secondary IDE channel from the device manager.
Then I usually do a Windows re-boot to have the hardware re-detected, but it
also may work okay if you just do "Add new hardware".

 

[Jud McCranie]

Something happened to my CD-RW drive. ...

I went inside, disconnected a CD-ROM, put the CD-RW in its place as master,
rebooted, and it went to ultra DMA mode 2, so now it is working fine. (Both
drives were set to Cable Select).

 

[Alex Nichol]

Yes, if the CD drive is connected to the secondary IDE channel, then
uninstall the secondary IDE channel from the device manager.
Then I usually do a Windows re-boot to have the hardware re-detected, but it
also may work okay if you just do "Add new hardware".

You can rarely remove just the secondary channel. Remove the master
level - the one in the group that is immediately above Primary, OK, and
reboot