CDRLabs.com

My Western Digital 80GB with 8MB cache is set as my primary slave. The transfer mode is Multi word DMA-2. My primary master is a 40GB IBM, set to Ultra DMA-5.

I have reviewed the FAQs but I did not notice anything about Multi word DMA-2. I am wondering if this is the optimal configuration for the Western Digital drive.


EDIT: Thought I might add my specs
1.3GHz P4 (400MHz frontside bus)
386MB RDRAM PC 800
Windows XP Home

NO ! the worse - the better PIO , SINGLE WORD DMA , MULTIWORD DMA , DMA .

Your hard drive should be at least in DMA mode 5 ( or ultra DMA mode 5 , it's similar ) .

Plus your bigger hard drive should be set as primary master and contain the O.S .........

Assuming I keep the larger drive as primary slave, how can I change it from Multi word DMA-2 to something better?

Is this something I change within the BIOS?

Pfff... uninstall your hard drives in peripherals list , uninstall your primary IDE controller in controllers list .
At reboot all should be redetected fine ( if not and if your motherboard has a VIA chipset install and try the VIA IDE Miniport driver to change yourself the transfert mode http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=66) .

And look your bios to see if you have not disabled DMA for this hard drive !

hmm....I just restarted my computer and according to DTemp (http://www.private.peterlink.ru/tochinov/), both drives are now Ultra DMA-5.

do some reading in the FAQ:

What are DMA and UDMA ?
especially the links in the last post.
How to enable DMA in Windows XP (with pictures)
Problems enabling DMA in Windows XP

@dodecahedron, thank you very much.

your'e welcome!

that's why they made me FAQ moderator

Yes , my advice was somewhat risky ("BE VERY CAREFUL your OS drive isn't on the channel your'e uninstalling!!!" says dodecahedron in the last post )
. Next time i'll perhaps give also links to the FAQ .

Hum i don't understand this guy . Why use another program than XP to check hard drive transfert mode ? Plus , unless he has done something or XP was showing something false , just restarting his computer could not correct an issue .

Well, like I said, both hard drives are using Ultra DMA-5 now, so I can't complain.

However, my primary and secondary channel's propertie's dialogue do not display an "advanced settins" tab.

I was going to attach an image but I see that this board doesn't support uploading pictures.

vbl117 wrote:Hum i don't understand this guy . Why use another program than XP to check hard drive transfert mode ? Plus , unless he has done something or XP was showing something false , just restarting his computer could not correct an issue .

Yes, restarting may not have corrected the problem, but maybe it corrected the program I am using to view the tranfers mode (DTemp I mentioned above).

I do not know how to view the transfer mode in XP Home. I was using DTemp to check the drives temperature when I happended to notice that it gave the drives tranfer mode as well.

the faq explains how to post pictures :

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=8826

ok i understand now .

Wedge Maniac wrote:Well, like I said, both hard drives are using Ultra DMA-5 now, so I can't complain.

However, my primary and secondary channel's propertie's dialogue do not display an "advanced settins" tab.

I was going to attach an image but I see that this board doesn't support uploading pictures.

do you use Intel's Application Accelerator?
if you do, then controlling of transfer mode is in the IAA, and you don't have an Advanced Settings tab in the Primary/Secondary IDE Channel Properties page (see not at the end of the "How to enable DMA in Windows XP" FAQ).

Yes sir! I have Intel's Application Accelerator installed. Is this the best config? Or should I uninstall IAA?

i dunno.
i have no experience with it (i have an Athlon system).

from what i've read, i believe that the IAA gives a very marginal performance improvement.

maybe someone else with more experience with IAA will make a comment.

i think you can check what DMA mode the system is in through the IAA. i'm not sure if you can change it, though.
check it out and let us know!

if you do uninstall IAA, they you should have winXP back to normal, with the Advanced Settings tab with which you can view and change the transfer mode.