Why is my Barracuda IV stuck in PIO mode?

[DrVos]

Hi all,

Well, for the last couple of weeks my computer has felt very sluggish, esp when opening files and programs. I even tried to rip one of my DVD's and it took 45 minutes! Looking into my controller properties, i made sure to select DMA if avaiable was on , but the drive seems to be stuck on PIO mode. I verified that the drive was set to Primary Master, with nothing else on the channel. I went into my BIOS and made sure that DMA was avaible for my channels, etc.

But I'm still stuck in PIO mode!! I'm at my wits end. Any help would be great.

Specs:
WinXP Pro
Xp 1700 on a Dragon+
768 MB DDR
Barracuda IV 60GB

TIA,
Steven

 

[paralazarguer]

I know that sometimes even if you specify that it is a DMA drive in the BIOS it has trouble with it. It's best just to leave it on auto. If you have set it as DMA is available in windows and it won't take it, you'll have to uninstall the primary IDE channel and reboot.
Hope that helps.

 

[nightowl]

It also could be a problem with your chipset. This is a very common problem with VIA's IDE controllers. I had the same problem with a system that had a VIA chipset. I was able to get it fixed by installing new IDE drivers from VIA. You may want to check and make sure that your IDE cables are connected properly too.

 

[DrVos]

Hmm, I havet tried installing the newest ide drivers yet. I'll make sure to try that when i get home.

Thanks for the tips

 

[stonecold3169]

I have no clue how relavent this is, maybe not at all, and you probably won't like it...

BUT, I had an issue just like this, and it was caused in Win2000 without ACPI enabled under power management in the bios. Unfortunetly, the only way to fix it was to wipe the drive, make the setting change in the bios, and reinstall the OS (Typically ACPI is a bad thing in ntfs or so I've been told...). Anyways, I did it and it fixed the problem, so if all else fails it's worth a shot I suppose.