Just got a hard drive - ATAPI errors in Event Viewer, and no DMA mode available

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
19
81
I'm guessing this drive is defective? It's a Seagate Barracude ATA IV, ST340016A, 40GB, 7200rpm drive.

I've tried it on two systems now, one a VIA KT133A system, running WinXP Pro SP1. It previously had a 20GB Samsung 5400rpm drive in UDMA Mode 4. Windows refuses to run the Seagate in DMA mode on either of its IDE controllers, and it blue-screens if I try to use it on an add-in controller - STOP 0x7B error. The BSOD might be a boot.ini problem though...right?
Quick aside though - the BIOS does detect the drive as ATA/100.
Also of note - Acronis True Image's bootable CD also couldn't enable DMA mode on the drive.
On the second system, my main system actually, it does the same thing - PIO mode only. And the rest of the drives are Seagates, all running just fine at UDMA Mode 5. That's nForce2-based.
I ran the online Seatools suite, and they found nothing wrong with the drive. :shocked:


But I have tried a lot of things to try to get this drive to work - removing and reinstalling the IDE controllers in Device Manager does nothing, nor did updating the drivers on the VIA-based system. Different cables also does nothing.
Windows keeps reporting some ATAPI error during bootup, which, according to Microsoft's website, it means that the drive isn't responding properly to DMA requests, so after 6 failed attempts, it switches to PIO mode. And that's exactly what Event Viewer shows - 6 failed attempts.


So, defective drive?

If it matters, it came to me formatted as a dynamic disk. I wiped it all out though with Acronis True Image - I cloned a standard NTFS partition over to this new drive, which should have wiped out everything on it.

And, I just now wiped it out completely in Disk Manager, and reformatted - a quick format still took about 2 minutes and rendered the PC fairly unresponsive for the duration.

Some benchmarks too:
40GB, in PIO mode.
Same test, but on a 200GB drive in DMA mode.

Both drives are ATA/100, and are ID'd as the BIOS as such.
 

natto fire

Diamond Member
Jan 4, 2000
7,117
10
76
Looks like you covered pretty much anything else, I would guess it is the drive controller, if only they sold HDD controller boards at RadioShack ;)
 

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
19
81
Anyone else? Or is Captain Howdy's assessment, in agreement with mine, accurate?