CD-RW drive stuck in PIO mode!
As of a couple days ago, my CDRW burner has been burning at sub-rate speeds. After closer inspection, I have found the drive is stuck in PIO mode. I cannot imagine why, as it had used to use DMA mode w/o an issue.
I have checked:
The BIOS: Everything checks out.
Device properties for the secondary master channel: It (for some reason) was set to "PIO only", although even after setting it to "DMA if available, and uninstalling the drive, rebooting, and reinstalling, it still is in PIO mode (although DMA mode is available).
The other drives, including the DVD-ROM drive on Secondary Slave, is in Ultra DMA Mode 2, hard drive Mode 5, but still the burner is PIO.
The drive is able to burn files, although slowly (at around 8x-9x, or so says BlindWrite).
What can I do to fix this? What am I missing here?!
I have checked:
The BIOS: Everything checks out.
Device properties for the secondary master channel: It (for some reason) was set to "PIO only", although even after setting it to "DMA if available, and uninstalling the drive, rebooting, and reinstalling, it still is in PIO mode (although DMA mode is available).
The other drives, including the DVD-ROM drive on Secondary Slave, is in Ultra DMA Mode 2, hard drive Mode 5, but still the burner is PIO.
The drive is able to burn files, although slowly (at around 8x-9x, or so says BlindWrite).
What can I do to fix this? What am I missing here?!
0
Comments
You could try using system restore to roll back to a point before that happened if you're running XP.
NS
My Plextor 24x burner is stuck in pio mode.
That is not very good.
I can burn cd's at 4x that sucks.
Last time I had the problem, I remember a reg file helped me out.
Anyone happen to have such a reg file?
XP automatically (and permanently) drops optical drives down to PIO mode if it encounters trouble reading or writing a disc. Changing the DMA/PIO option in device Manager won't help at that point.
madmat - you have the right general idea. What you did worked because windows saw it as a new drive. Doing it the way I described above saves you from having to open your case and fritz around with cables.
When people ask about this problem, they get the answer. Delete the controller and reboot.
I'm sorry if I misunderstood any of the above.
But I am getting a bit tired here.
I removed it and rebooted.
Still in Pio mode.
It did help removing the controller.
I removed the controller in device manager and rebooted.
The drive was back in dma state.
But for how long?
It will stay in DMA mode until windows encounters what it deems to be a problem reading discs. It's a good idea to check it any time you have a problem while reading or writing a CD.
If you've got a coaster laying around and feel like experimenting, just have windows explorer try to read it. Keep doing it and whammo - back to crummy PIO.
I goofed when I told you to delete the drive and check the controller, I meant do it the other way around.
You'll never know when it want to switch back to pio mode.
Can't you disable that handy feature?
Nope - gotta be one of the dumbest things about XP... :screwed:
A while back I did a little experiment, since it seemed too lame to have to go through all that just because windows decided your drive wasn't working properly. I got everything right with DMA, then made a backup of the registry. Then I stuck in a CD I knew contained errors. The drive hemmed and hawed, spun up, spun down, thrashed around for a few minutes, and finally started giving me "read error" messages. When I checked again, it was bye-bye DMA, hello PIO. Then I made another registry backup and ran a program to compare the two (DMA :thumbup & DMA :thumbsdow ) copies of the registry. I figured I would just export the registry key that had changed and I would have a handy file to click on to put things right.
Didn't find a blasted thing... :shakehead
Now it's possible that the program I used to compare the two registry copies just missed it. I can't remember which program that was, someday I'm going to try it again and see if I get luckier.
Good luck - as MJO discovered, just delete the IDE Pri & Sec, reboot, and you should be fine.
I had no problems with the primary controller.
That's the permanent solution! even if XP detects errors again, it'll not change the drive's mode.
The current EIDE drivers for the nVidia chipset is kinda iffy. EIther it will work perfectly, you'll lose the ability to burn CDs, or you lose the ability to boot into windows...
I think I'll try uninstalling the secondary channel. BRB in a few minutes.
NS's quote above is telling you to use Windows default drivers and I was agreeing with him telling you that using such drivers is a permanent solution.
They work perfectly on UDMA2, CDRW burns at full speed and I don't get any errors.
The uninstall/reinstall of the secondary channel did it!
Thanks guys!
Well, the drive is in "Multi-Word DMA Mode 2"... but thats just as good, right?
He also said something about trying the manu's drivers if you're already using default (which I am). I thought that was what I read.
Although this might not even be in the registry-- might be in driver config files-- It might also be the EIDE function set malfing due to OCing and detailed timing issues. Note that this happens a lot with MMC (non-MMC2 or MMC3) drives, as MCC is UDMA 1 typically. XP was tuned for MMC2 and up, 98 SE for MMC with some MMC2 compatibility. MMC can be UDMA 0 also, and that is pure PIO, but this feels like a driver problem fooling the EIDE control circuitry and NOT a pure XP issue. Try cleaning the drive with a Laser Lense cleaner CD.
See, XP does this by device, but a secondary channel fault can cause this also. And a dirty laser lense can also cause spurious and apparent "device fault" problems. A virus can cause this, especially a worm that has been in system quite a while, but what you say tells me this is not the most likely cause and instead the most probable cause is a dirty or fogged Laser Lense just beginning to get too dirty or fogged to work. Ever seen a static charged Laser Lense gather dust and refuse to read or burn perfectly??? What you are describing is what happens after a while in that case.
Lense gets so foggy that reading is difficult, Laser reports intermittent reseeks and they gradually get more and more common. XP eventually sticks the device and channel into slow mode-- people got tired of a Windows that pre-emptively dejooked things (sound system was most obvious, 95 used to uininstall drivers when a sound card malfed or someonemessed up the IRQ and resource settings, sometimes the whole Windows Sound system sublayers vanished with it, and 98 has done more subtel things). This in fact is probably not all an O\S fault, it is an error reporting pass-along CODE descrimination fault or determination fault OR a hardware problem becoming evident-- dirty lense, or cheap plastic(possibly Polycarbonate) laser lense getting gradually heat distorted and result is unreliable I\O.
Also, please avoid pure DMA with UDMA devices, if your burner is UDMA 2 or 3 XP likes to not use them as DMA (HDs will also do this with XP, unlike with 98 and 98 SE and some combos of 2000 and hardware which HAD to use DMA) and the burner will be in a compatibility mode if older and DMA is used. It might drop right out of UDMA2 to PIO if forced to be in compatibility mode with XP present, and the fallback to PIO\UDMA0 has happened to me on several boxes with even HDs when the system thought a HD was going wonky or there was virusing present and things were happening to file structure that XP would "think" was file integrity issues.
To next question about multi-word DMA 2-- this is equivalent to 33 MHz, IE UDMA 2, and is normal for most burners designed 3-7 years ago. DVD MIGHT be at what Windows would call multi-word DMA 3 or DMA 2 also depending on when designed.
I would also look for mfr update drivers, let them know what is happening if CD-RW is under warranty and driver updates have not fixed. Also mobo mfr, ditto. Possibly also partly an unwanted BIOS interaction that has been patched in a BIOS Flash file.
John.
Already did that.
I have had a hard drive stuck in this mode ever since I bought it. :banghead: Hypermood, you made my day!
Found so far:
"When a CD hangs or causes malfunction, Windows XP will set the device to PIO-mode and can only be fixed by uninstalling the Secondary IDE Channel under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controller" in the Device Manager, followed by a reboot. It will set it back to DMA-mode again until another malfunction occurs."
/off the web...
"Windows XP will turn off DMA mode for a device after encountering certain errors during data transfer operations. If more that six DMA transfer timeouts occur, Windows will turn off DMA and use only PIO mode on that device. In this case, the user cannot turn on DMA for this device. The only option for the user who wants to enable DMA mode is to uninstall and reinstall the affected channel, "Primary IDE Channel" or "Secondary IDE Channel". Reboot the system and Windows XP will reinstall the driver for the channel. Windows XP downgrades the Ultra DMA transfer mode after receiving more than six CRC errors. Whenever possible, the operating system will step down one UDMA mode at a time (from UDMA mode 4 to UDMA mode 3, and so on). If the mini-IDE driver for the device does not support stepping down transfer modes, or if the device is running UDMA mode 0, Windows XP will step down to PIO mode after encountering six or more CRC errors. In this case, a system reboot should restore the original DMA mode settings. All CRC and timeout errors are logged in the system event log. These types of errors could be caused by improper mounting or improper cabling (for example, 40-pin instead of 80-pin cable). Or such errors could indicate imminent hardware failure, for example, in a hard drive or chipset."
/found here: http://www.tsli.com/faq-ide.html#106
I actually read the manual (for once) to my new DVD-RW and the people at LiteOn said that for best performance (when using two CD/DVD-drives on the same IDE-channel) you should install the DVD-RW as Device-0 (1st) as Master and the other CD-RW drive as Device-1 (2nd) as Slave. This will utillize the best DMA settings! I reinstalled my new drive as recomended and the settings are as listed below. Would never have guessed that it matters what order they are installed in on the channel. I haven't had any problems with either bad burns or stability so far for either CDs or DVDs after following the instructions properly. Maximum speed every time for what the media allows! =)
Device Manager settings: IDE ATA/ATAPI controller (Windows XP Pro SP2)
Primary IDE Channel: Driver = Microsoft default
Device 0 HD-1; (DMA if available) = Ultra DMA Mode 5
Device 1 HD-2; (DMA if available) = Ultra DMA Mode 5
Secondary IDE Channel: Driver = Microsoft default
Device 0 16xDVD-RW; (DMA if available) = Ultra DMA Mode 4
Device 1 52xCD-RW; (DMA if available) = Ultra DMA Mode 2
What is the difference between PIO and UDMA transfers? Check here: http://www.tsli.com/faq-ide.html#106
As you can see there's quite a gain when you have the settings right and get out of PIO-mode...
/Joe Cool