Storage Solutions HDD in PIO Mode

F

felix

Disciple
Hi...

My brand new Seagate 200GB (ST3200822A), for some reason, seems to be using PIO mode in windows. The option for DMA is greyed out. As a result, copying is horrendously slow and the CPU utilization also goes up (on average around the 95% mark) and all other apps become really slow.

Does anybody know what to do ? thx...
 
go to bios and hdd setup options make it manual .. put the dma mode.. check the cable if possible replace it with the 80 conductor one is it SATA "i dunno if it is from the part number"? then try diff ports :p wat else post some bios screenies if possible.
 
first get the newer cable as mentioned..

then go to bios and set all the hdd parameters to auto

and in xp in device manager u`ll get to the ide controller and there it`ll allow u to select dma mode..
 
felix said:
My brand new Seagate 200GB (ST3200822A), for some reason, seems to be using PIO mode in windows. The option for DMA is greyed out. As a result, copying is horrendously slow and the CPU utilization also goes up (on average around the 95% mark) and all other apps become really slow.

Does anybody know what to do ? thx...
Click to expand...
First make sure you are using a 80 wire ATA100 data cable then go to Device Manager / IDE Controller and uninstall only the Channel on which drive is attached - when you reboot the Channel will be back and the drive will be running in DMA mode.

If you use the 40 wire ATA33 data cable I dont think it means that the HDD has a MAX speed of PIO mode - with a 40 wire cable as far as I can remember you will get MAX speed of DMA 2. I know that if XP gets 6 data write errors then it drops the HDD speed from DMA to PIO mode.

A picture of the 2 cables... 80 wire is the one on top...

ATA40ATA100cables.jpg
 
Thx guys, for the suggestions..im at work right now - so ill try them out as soon as i get home. There are a few more points I'd like to mention

1. I'm using a thermaltake rounded UV cable which I'd bought bout 3 days back. So I seriously doubt its the older cable type. I will try another generic cable tho' just to check.

2. The BIOS (Award-Phoenix) settings are fine. Its set to DMA only and anyways my primary HDD (80GB Sata) works in DMA mode and there are no individual drive specific settings in the BIOS. There's only one setting for for IDE devices, as such and not for individual drives.

3. Bout uninstalling the IDE channel and restarting - Already tried that, didn't work.

4. The option in the HDD properties shows "Set to DMA if available" and below it says the current mode is "PIO" which is an option which cannot be changed there itself.

This PIO mode thingy is really getting to me cuz I basically can't do anything else while copying to,scanning, defragmenting that HDD and even when I do those things its extremely slow at that. Arrrrgh :D
 
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