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problem with DMA mode on my HDD

F

ForumMaster

Diamond Member
hi everybody! my prob is like this, i baught this maxtor hdd back in 2001 and it has performed fine ever since. i changed my comp buying a new rig and put it in as slave to my WDC WD800JB as master. it was slow ever since i installed it in my comp. i checked the Primary IDE channel and it is set to DMA if Available. but the drive is in PIO mode making it relatively slow. by all common logic, the drive must support DMA. Should i try moving it to my secondry IDE channel?
my rig:
AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ @2.2ghz
ASUS A7N8X-xX
512 MB RAM
Geforce 4 MX SE 64 MB graphic card (i know it sucks. i am looking for a new one now)
Master Drive is WDC WD800JB 80GB
Slave Drive is 6L080J4 Maxtor 80GB

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
edit: i tried moving it too my secondary IDE channel and no luck. the HDD is set to master too my SONY DW-Q30A DVD burner which is set as slave. any help please?
 
First off, verify your hard drive jumpers are correctly set to Master and Slave (no cable select). Then, go into the BIOS and set the hard drive types to MANUAL, it should auto detect the correct settings and the dreaded PIO mode shouldn't be shown. See what that does to start.
 
i believe so. i have version 1010. what do you mean manually select the drive type? i can choose between forcing it too be master, and between having it as Auto, Large, LBA or CHS.
 
I had the same problem once - some how in the BIOS it was detected a CHS I changed it to LBA and the problem went away.

Also check the IDE cable is square or pushed in properly on the back of the HDD - I have had read/boot errors when a cable has partially unplugged itself, in the past.
 
i tried different cables as well as different channels. i don't wanna delete the channel cause i'm afraid of losing the data. but i did change it to the secondary channel and nothing changed.
 
Windows has an error counter on the IDE channels. When it detects a certain number of errors, it begins to slow down the drive's transfer speed until there are no more errors. This is why your drive has been put into PIO mode.

To reset this error counter, delete the offending IDE channel and allow Windows to redetect it. This should give you back your UDMA modes.

I would not worry about this unless it continues to happen. If it happens again, then you will need to investigate the cause of these errors.

It will not hurt a thing to give this a try.
 
srry for not replying; i was away from a computer due to a trip. anyway, i tried what you said about disabling the ide channel. nothing happened. the question is like this:
should i assume the drive is dying? SpeedFan does show its fitness at a tad above half. does this mean anything? also, i can really here it when it seeks. should i get my stuff of there as soon as possible? should i try and format it and see if it helps? anyhelp would be greatly apreciated. thanks in advance.
 
Originally posted by: LTC8K6
Windows has an error counter on the IDE channels. When it detects a certain number of errors, it begins to slow down the drive's transfer speed until there are no more errors. This is why your drive has been put into PIO mode.
Click to expand...

Wow, I didn't know that! Can you link me to that info?
 
idi everything that the site said and no go. my drive is still in PIO mode and i looked in the event viewer and i can already see numerous atapi errors. this confirms that the drive is dead, right?
 
Sounds like your drive is going. Dont' wait too long. Backup it up! If you need data recover, shoot me a line. That series of drives has issues and I have shelf of these donor drive in my lab.
 
I would back up my data and then go to the drive mfgs site and d/l and run their diagnostic tools on the drive.
 
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