Primary/secondary IDE drives: PIO mode DMA mode

[James]

I am unable to get my new Western Digital 120 GB hard
drive to perform under Ultra DMA mode in the secondary
(slave) position. Windows XP will only assign it the PIO
mode and the performance is very slow.

Similarly, the secondary DVD/RW drive is also forced into
PIO mode only and cannot be changed into DMA mode.

Both these drives are capable of Ultra DMA 5 performance,
but XP does not allow DMA mode.

Any fixes? Thanks James

 

[Cari MS-MVP]

1) Ensure the BIOS is configured correctly and sees them at the correct
speed

2) Ensure they're connected by 80 wire ribbon cables

3) If you're running CS, try changing to Primary and Slave on the jumper
settings of the drives.

Cari
www.coribright.com

 

[Guest]

1) Ensure the BIOS is configured correctly and sees

them at the correct speed

This is a DELL 4550 and the BIOS has been updated to its
most recent version. There is little I can to to tweak
the BIOS after updating as there are simply no options
listed in the BIOS settings that apply.

2) Ensure they're connected by 80 wire ribbon cables

Right, it's an 80 wire ribbon

3) If you're running CS, try changing to Primary and

Slave on the jumper settings of the drives.



I've tried CS and Primary/Slave jumper settings with the
same result.....SLOW performance!!

It's amazing how many hours you can spend researching a
glitch and not come up with anything.....James