Disk Drives PIO Mode Only Problem

[Andrei Liutec]

Simptoms:

applications start much slower than usual;
sound is jittery in media player applications;
mouse pointer is less responsive, often seems to get stuck;


Problem:

DMA transfer mode is unavailable;
transfer mode for the master HDD IDE Channel set by Windows to PIO Mode Only after recovering from a serious error or after uninstalling programs that used dll hooks to perform disk-related functions.


Steps to confirm problem:

Right click My Computer and choose Manage from the contextual menu;
On the left panel of the Computer Management window expand System Tools and click on Device Manager
On the right (central) panel expand IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
Right click on the Primary IDE Channel, select Properties and click on the Advanced Settings tab
Most disk drives support DMA Transfer mode, if that is your case and if Transfer Mode is set to DMA if available then the Current Transfer Mode should also be DMA. If the Current Transfer Mode is set to PIO Only then it is most likely that the problem you're experiencing is the one described above.


Solution:

reinstall the IDE Channel drivers


Steps necessary to reinstall the IDE Channel drivers in Windows XP:

Right click My Computer and choose Manage from the contextual menu;
On the left panel of the Computer Management window expand System Tools and click on Device Manager
On the right (central) panel expand IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
Right click on the Primary IDE Channel, select Uninstall and confirm; do the same for Secondary IDE Channel
Restart Windows
After restart, windows should detect and install the IDE Channel drivers, this time setting the proper transfer mode.
If asked confirm the second restart.
Follow the steps above (steps to confirm problem) to check if the proper transfer mode has been set.

If the problem persists please contact http://bicester-computers.com for Quick Support.