Help. Drive using PIO mode insteaed of ATA133

scorpionscorpion
edited August 2005 in Hardware
Hello,

I recently purchased a new Maxtor 250GB drive. (Maxtor 6L250R0)
I already have a maxtor 30GB drive. (Maxtor 53073H4)

I have set them up with the following configuration in the BIOS.

Primary IDE (80 pin cable)
Master: 30GB Maxtor (Don’t want to reinstall windows and can't be bothered to do a partition copy)
Slave: 250GB Maxtor

Secondary IDE (40 pin cable)
Master: Plextor 708A DVD Writer
Slave: Some CDwriter

The boot up screen that you see just after you turn your PC on indicates the following setup has been configured.

Primary IDE
Master: LBA ATA100
Slave: LBA ATA133

Secondary IDE
Master: ATA33
Slave: PIO 4

The Award BIOS supports the following options
VIA Onchip IDE Device (Yes, I have installed the recommended VIA 4-in1 drivers)
Onchip IDE Channel 0 – Enabled
Onchip IDE Channel 1 – Enabled
IDE Prefetch Mode – Enabled
Primary Master PIO – Auto (Mode 0 – 4 also available)
Primary Slave PIO – Auto (Mode 0 – 4 also available)
Secondary Master PIO – Auto (Mode 0 – 4 also available)
Secondary Slave PIO – Auto (Mode 0 – 4 also available)
Primary Master UDMA – Auto (Disabled, UDMA33, UDMA66, UDMA100, UDMA133 also available)
Primary Slave UDMA – Auto (Disabled, UDMA33, UDMA66, UDMA100, UDMA133 also available)
Secondary Master UDMA – Auto (Disabled, UDMA33, UDMA66, UDMA100, UDMA133 also available)
Secondary Slave UDMA – Auto (Disabled, UDMA33, UDMA66, UDMA100, UDMA133 also available)
CDROM UDMA Support – Enabled

I have tried both the Auto setting and the UDMA133 setting for the Primary Slave but once I boot up into Windows I see the following when I go to
Device Manager->Primary IDE Channel->Advanced Settings

Device 0
Type: Auto Detection
Transfere Mode: DMA If Available
Current Mode: UDMA 5

Device 1
Type: Auto Detection
Transfere Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfere Mode: PIO

It seems the problem is with Windows, since at bootup it correctly identifies LBA ATA133 for the drive mode.

I have seaqrched through the windows help center, and found nothing relevant. Can someone please help me solve this? My 250GB brand new drive is clocking in at about 2.5MB per sec. This is appallingly slow. I feel like shooting myself every time I watch a file copy between drives.

Please Help ….

Comments

  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited August 2005
    Uninstall the drive and the IDE Channel, reboot and let Windows find and reinstall them.

    Once Windows decides that the drive doesn't like UDMA, a fresh start is the only way around it.
  • scorpionscorpion
    edited August 2005
    You are a genius.

    Thank you kind sir ..
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited August 2005
    It's probably a measure of how much I like WinXP that I'd have to say that this is my biggest gripe about it. I once spent nearly an entire day trying to find an easy way to hack or patch the registry to accomplish what should be an easy task. What really stinks is when you are trying to read a screwy CD. After a few tries WinXP wants to decide that the DMA settings are the problem, then it's uninstall/reinstall time.

    Glad you got it going. :)
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited August 2005
    Uhhhh ?

    The drive he was bitching about not being in ata133 mode was a cd burner?

    And it will downgrade the drive to PIO mode again if it gets errors. Since this is some "no name" cd burner it may even be a PIO mode drive to strat with.

    Tex
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited August 2005
    Tex wrote:
    Uhhhh ?

    The drive he was bitching about not being in ata133 mode was a cd burner?...
    Who said anything about that? :scratch:

    I was just using the illustration that a bum CD can cause Windows to downgrade the DMA settings for the drive. It's the most common cause of this "feature" in WinXP, though certainly not the only one.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited August 2005
    My 250GB brand new drive is clocking in at about 2.5MB per sec. This is appallingly slow. I feel like shooting myself every time I watch a file copy between drives.

    Erm, the only thing running slow there is the Secondary Slave which is the CD-Writer which wouldn't effect the speed of the transfers between the two drives on the Primary IDE controler...
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited August 2005
    profdlp wrote:
    Who said anything about that? :scratch:

    uhhhhh

    He did.

    The title of this thread is "Help. Drive using PIO mode insteaed of ATA133".

    And his boot screen shows

    Primary IDE (80 pin cable)
    Master: 30GB Maxtor (Don’t want to reinstall windows and can't be bothered to do a partition copy)
    Slave: 250GB Maxtor

    Secondary IDE (40 pin cable)
    Master: Plextor 708A DVD Writer
    Slave: Some CDwriter

    The boot up screen that you see just after you turn your PC on indicates the following setup has been configured.

    Primary IDE
    Master: LBA ATA100
    Slave: LBA ATA133

    Secondary IDE
    Master: ATA33
    Slave: PIO 4

    Tex
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited August 2005
    It was his Primary Slave drive giving him trouble, which is a 250GB Maxtor drive. :)
    scorpion wrote:
    ...Primary IDE (80 pin cable)
    Master: 30GB Maxtor (Don’t want to reinstall windows and can't be bothered to do a partition copy)
    Slave: 250GB Maxtor...

    ...I have tried both the Auto setting and the UDMA133 setting for the Primary Slave but once I boot up into Windows I see the following when I go to
    Device Manager->Primary IDE Channel->Advanced Settings

    Device 0
    Type: Auto Detection
    Transfere Mode: DMA If Available
    Current Mode: UDMA 5

    Device 1
    Type: Auto Detection
    Transfere Mode: DMA if available
    Current Transfere Mode: PIO.
  • scorpionscorpion
    edited August 2005
    I'm glad the prof is on top of the situation in here. It almost seems like we got a riot going. ;)

    But seriously ... Prof, you mentioned there is more than one reason this comes back. Would you mind enlighting the unenlightened. It seems my problem has returned.

    I am fairly convinced that there is a problem with the 'explorer' progam because I notice the computer revert to its terrible speeds after terminating it. Yes, yes .. Of course I have a reason... It hogs 99% of system resources clocks up to 200MB of memory and I can't do anything else on my PC. After selecting start new task 'explorer' from the task manager everything seems ok.

    I took a dreadful step and installed service pack 2 since Im fairly sure any corruption that may have occured in the 'explorer' program will probably be replaced and hopefully no longer exist. I will wait a few days to see if the problem returns, but in the meantime if anyone has any ideas as to why it may return or why explorer would do such ghastly things - I would love to hear.

    Scorpion.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited August 2005
    It wouldn't hurt to run the test from the HD manufacturer.

    Another common cause of this is having a corrupt video file on the drive, or even an extremely large video file which is not corrupt. When Windows can't generate the preview for the fancy-pants icon view, it runs Windows Explorer CPU usage right up to the max. See if any of this applies to your situation.
  • scorpionscorpion
    edited August 2005
    Hi Prof,

    Yes, this may be the cause. I have noticed this happens when I click on a folder filled with .avi files.

    Do you know a simple way to determine what file is the offending one without copying them 1 by 1 to a single folder and then trying to recreate a situation that you definately dont want to happen?

    I always use the detail view, not the fancy stuff, so I doubt it has to do with file size. More likely corruption.

    Scorpion
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited August 2005
    How many files are in the suspect folder? You might try a batch renamer program and change them all to a .av_ extension. That way Windows won't be tempted to even try to generate a preview (or do anything else potentially causing Win Explorer to hang) since it will ignore them all as unknown file types.

    Then cut-and-paste half of them to a new folder. Rename the extensions to .avi on the files in one folder and see if the problem recurs. If it does you'll know the stinker is among the ones you just renamed; if not, it will be among the ones still ending in .av_. Repeat the process until you've narrowed the list of suspects down to a small number, then try them one-by-one.

    If you read through some of those Google links I posted you'll find that it can be tricky deleting the troublemaker. If you need help with that let us know; there are ways around that problem, too.

    I have used this batch renamer with great success. :)
  • scorpionscorpion
    edited August 2005
    and I was really hoping you could tell me about a tool that can identify corrupt media files. :scratch:

    OK, I'll do it the long way ... :D
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited August 2005
    scorpion wrote:
    and I was really hoping you could tell me about a tool that can identify corrupt media files. :scratch:
    I wish I knew of one. :rolleyes:
    OK, I'll do it the long way ... :D
    Hope it works out OK. :)
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited August 2005
    profdlp wrote:
    It was his Primary Slave drive giving him trouble, which is a 250GB Maxtor drive. :)

    His primary slave isnt in PIO mode is it?

    Thats the slave on the secondary channel thats in PIO mode and its a cdrom.

    The maxtor is ata133. Check again. This is what I see...

    Primary IDE
    Master: LBA ATA100
    Slave: LBA ATA133

    The only PIO mode drive is the slave on the SECONDARY ide. Thats the cd burner.

    There is no hard drive in PIO mode.

    Which is what Enverex also pointed out.

    There is no way on this earth to get the secondary slave into ata133 mode. Because its a friggin CD not a hard drive.

    Tex
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited August 2005
    Tex, what the BIOS sees is immaterial. Windows is turning DMA off on his Primary Slave drive.

    Read it again.
    Device Manager->Primary IDE Channel->Advanced Settings

    Device 0
    Type: Auto Detection
    Transfere Mode: DMA If Available
    Current Mode: UDMA 5

    Device 1
    Type: Auto Detection
    Transfere Mode: DMA if available
    Current Transfere Mode: PIO
    The only PIO mode drive is the slave on the SECONDARY ide. Thats the cd burner.

    There is no hard drive in PIO mode.
    And the Primary Slave drive is in what mode?

    Unless you think Maxtor makes a 250GB burner. :rolleyes:
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