PIO \ Ultra DMA Mode Question

[Ron Yuen]

I have two hard drives sharing my primary IDE channel on my
motherboard. In the advanced properties of the channel I observed
the current transfer mode of my Device 1 to be "PIO Mode" while the
current transfer mode of my Device 0 is "Ultra DMA mode 2". My PC is
apparently running slower due to the slower transfer rate on one of
my drives. I suspect a failing hard drive after reading a post here
a week ago but want to know: Is there a way that I can identify
which physical drive is having issues without having to unplug one of
the drives? Is Device 0 my boot drive or primary drive? Would
having one drive with issues on the same IDE channel as the other
"good" one cause the good one to also have to transfer data at the
degraded rate?

Thanks for your time!

-Ron

 

[Curt Christianson]

Hi Ron,

These articles may be of help:

DMA reverts to PIO
http://www.michna.com/kb/WxDMA.htm
and
DMA Mode for ATA/ATAPI Devices in Windows XP
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/IDE-DMA.mspx

HTH,

 

[Ron Yuen]

Hi Ron,

These articles may be of help:

DMA reverts to PIO
http://www.michna.com/kb/WxDMA.htm
and
DMA Mode for ATA/ATAPI Devices in Windows XP
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/IDE-DMA.mspx

HTH,

Thanks Curt; I'll give these a whirl and let you know if it helps.
Thanks again for taking the time to help me!

 

[Curt Christianson]

HI Ron,

Let us know what turns out, and you're welcome!

 

[Al Pilarcik]

I have two hard drives sharing my primary IDE channel on my

Replace the 80 wire IDE cable with a new one.

If this does not help, remove one HDD, connect and jumper the other as
Master on the black end of the cable, then monitor the connected hard drive.

If it continues, try the other hard drive, again jumpered as Master. If both
drives still run in PIO mode, try the other IDE channel.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/IDE-DMA.mspx

 

[Ron Yuen]

HI Ron,

Let us know what turns out, and you're welcome!

I tried the suggestions in the first article and now have both
devices on my Primary IDE channel in Ultra DMA mode 5 and both
devices on my Secondary IDE channel in Ultra DMA mode 2. I think
that means that my disk controllers are "optimized" for maximum data
transfer? When I play my MP3s it still skips but it does seem to be
a little better and a little less frequent. I'm still suspecting a
bad drive or "starting to go" at the very least. I've downloaded a
utility to excercise and diagnose the two hard drives but so far both
have successfully passed all the tests! Maybe I do have a bad cable
like Al suggests. Any more thoughts or suggestions? Thanks again
for all the help!!

 

[Curt Christianson]

Hi Ron,

Replacing the cable certainly couldn't hurt.

Have you tried putting the HD's on seperate IDE channels? Just a thought at
this point, but you might try it. If you do decide to try it, check to make
sure that each HD is *still* in DMA rather than PIO. Xp can be rather
"dumb" that way sometimes. Anytime a try moving/altering settings for
drives, I always end up checking DMA status.
It still doesn't feel like a failing HD to me, but a drive utility at
anytime will also never hurt.

--
HTH,
Curt

Windows Support Center
http://aumha.org/

 

[Ron Yuen]

Hi Ron,

Replacing the cable certainly couldn't hurt.

Have you tried putting the HD's on seperate IDE channels? Just a
thought at this point, but you might try it. If you do decide to try
it, check to make sure that each HD is *still* in DMA rather than PIO.
Xp can be rather "dumb" that way sometimes. Anytime a try
moving/altering settings for drives, I always end up checking DMA
status.
It still doesn't feel like a failing HD to me, but a drive utility at
anytime will also never hurt.

Hi Curt,

I'm going to try and replace the cable over the weekend and see if
that
helps. It started to skip again today but definitely not as bad as
it
was before I reconfigured the channels back to Ultra DMA from PIO.
I'll
keep you posted. Thanks again for helping me!

 

[Curt Christianson]

You're welcome Ron. Good luck, and keep us posted.


--
HTH,
Curt

Windows Support Center
http://aumha.org/

 

[Ron Yuen]

You're welcome Ron. Good luck, and keep us posted.

Hi Everyone,

Well I reloaded my sound card drivers (SB Live) and my "music skipping"
problem has been resolved!! I tested my drives and my RAM with various
testing utilites and they both passed with no errors. Thanks for all your
help and for helping me get the transfer rate on my drives back to Ultra
DMA mode 5!

-Ron

 

[Curt Christianson]

Glad to hear all worked out Ron. It's nice when things have a happy ending.