DMA and PIO help please

Wedge

Wedge

1
I am troubleshooting a game that I installed--well, almost installed. Installation terminated after receiving a message that says there has been an "I/O error" with the option to "retry" or "abort". I clicked "retry" but it didn't work. The "send error message" appeared and I clicked "don't send".

Well, I went to the game's website and browsed the support/troublshooting section. I found suggested fixes for the exact problem that I encountered. I have tried all to no avail except for ones that deals with DMA and PIO.

The fix says to "change the DMA setting on the CD-ROM".

I am unable to find the DMA setting for the CD-ROM using the step-by-step that is offered at the web site. It suggests going into the Device Manager and double clicking the CD-ROM then click the Advanced Settings tab, but there is no Advanced Settings tab. At least not on XP Pro.

At the bottom of the troubleshooting page it offers this:
"The following is unsupported by Activision: Set your CD-ROM drive or IDE channels for the CD-ROM to run in PIO mode 1 or a lower setting then it currently is at through BIOS".

Now, in the Device Manager I can access DMA and PIO settings for the IDE channels but I have no idea which is for my CD-ROM.

Can anybody provide the following info:
1) What is DMA and PIO?
2) Which, if any, IDE channel should I change to acheive the results that the troubleshooter is suggesting as a fix?
3) If I need to go into the BIOS (which I'm saving as a last resort) what exactly do I need to look for?

Any help on this is appreciated,
Wedge
 
FortiTude

FortiTude

1
can you tell how many harddisks and cd drives you have, then i can guess which ones is your cd
most likely it is the secondary master
if you don't have some really old hd / cd-drives then you can enable dma for everywhere you can find it
FortiTude
 
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newby

1
Access the pio/dma settings in windowsxp thru device manager under ata/atapi controllers.
Pio mode is a SLOWER data access method long before existed the Direct Memory Access employed by some devices, it is used mainly for troubleshooting or compatibility problems.
 
Wedge

Wedge

1
FortiTude said:
can you tell how many harddisks and cd drives you have, then i can guess which ones is your cd
most likely it is the secondary master
if you don't have some really old hd / cd-drives then you can enable dma for everywhere you can find it
FortiTude
Click to expand...

I have a DVD-ROM which is my D drive.
I have a CD-RW which is my E drive.
I have only one HDD which is my C drive, and it is a single partition.

Wedge
 
FortiTude

FortiTude

1
then i suppose your hard disk is primary master,
the DVD is secondary master
and the burner secondary slave
FortiTude
 
S

shadoe_phantom

1
newby is on the right track.
This is the best way to make sure you have it set properly (even without knowing which is set on master & which is not *winXP method):

To enable or disable Dma for Ide devices.

Go to>Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager.

Look for Ide Atapi Controllers>Double Click to see Primary and secondary channels.Doubleclick on preferred channel>Advanced settings.You can now see the settings of each channnel and make changes if required.

@Wedge,
partition your drive to make at least 2 partitions (C: & D: for HDD).
This will help speed up your system & offer better security in the event your HDD fails. Many many times your won't be able to recover files off the C: drive if it gets corrupted, but you can get your files off the D: drive.

Ofcourse all of this info has been written before on this forum in greater detail. Just do a search (make it vague for more returns).
 
Wedge

Wedge

1
Thanks for the advice shadoe. I've been wondering if making 2 partitions would speed up things. Say put applications on one and data on the other? Or maybe games on one?

I'll figure it out. Thanks for the help.

Wedge
 
N

NetLion

1
Only for information !

MODE---------------- Transference rate (MB/s)

PIO mode 4---------------------16.6
PIO mode 5---------------------20.0
Fast ATA-------------------------11.1
Fast ATA2-----------------------16.6
DMA mode 1--------------------13.3
DMA mode 2--------------------16.6
Ultra-ATA------------------------33.3
Ultra DMA 33 (ATA-33)------33.3
Ultra DMA 66 (ATA-66)------66.6
Ultra DMA 100 (ATA-100)---100
Ultra DMA 133 (ATA-133)---133
 
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shadoe_phantom

1
somewhere on the forum I did a small tut on this, but basically it depends on how big your HDD is.
We will use 20G & 40G as a reference here & only 2 partitions (though I like having 3):

C: 4.5-6Gigs (for both 20 & 40 gig HDD)
-in C drive only install windows OS system & stuff that makes it run properly (possibly a 3rd party program like system works).
-the first 400MB or so of the HDD is the fastest, so making sure you have enough free space there will always keep system running smoothly.
-related to 2nd comment, page files/virtual memory & all of that is also related to C drive (unless you change settings yourself), so always having good gobs of free space there will help keep things running smoothly.
-the more apps installed here, the slower system gets 'cause takes longer to seek through everything else.

D: the rest of your HDD space or if you want a 3rd partition then D will be roughly 5-8Gigs & the rest left over (always larger as you move along) for your E: drive.
-this is where you stick all/majory of your 3rd party programs & such (eg: photoshop/3Dstudio Max/Office/whatever).
-this will keep you from bogging down C drive & will defrag faster. Also helps when you don't need to defrag one big HDD for just a few things.
-but also make sure you have some good space for apps here 'cause if you leave only a few hundred MB they will start to slow down.

E:
-if you have a 3rd partition, then this will serve as your backup/storage drive. This you don't have to defrag as often as the others. Once or twice a month (where as the other 2 drives normally once a week is good).

There are a few more bennefits to doing things this way, but this is all you really need to know for now.
Good luck & hope this helps.
 
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onesolo

1
Ok guys, a have a similiar problem.
I have a Toshiba CD-ROM XM-6702B and a Plextor CD-R PX-W1210A, both are at the Secondary IDE Channel (I have two harddrives at the Primary IDE Channel).
Lately when I record something I have lots of Buffer Underrun messages.
Today I found out, by running the Nero Infotool that both drives have DMA disabled (The Plex can only run at PIO 4, so I think this is normal and therefor I cannot select the DMA for the drive, correct me if I'm wrong...).
Then I went to the Device Manager, I have XP, and I realize that the CD-Rom is only at PIO mode (as the CD-R is).
I made a restart and went into the bios and saw that my CD-Rom is at Ultra DMA 2 mode and the CD-R at PIO 4. Manualy I put the CD-Rom at Ultra DMA 2, saved, went on XP and the same keeps going.
Somehow I can't turn on the DMA from the CD-Rom. Can anyone tell me why and tell me how to turn it on ?

My system:
AMD Duron 800@905
512 MB Ram
Mobo Asus A7V-133 with Bios v1009
Via 4in1 v4.41
2 Hard Drives at the Primary IDE Channel
Toshiba CD-ROM XM-6702B (Secondary Master)
Plextor CD-R PX-W1210A (Secondary Slave)
WinXP Pro
 
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shadoe_phantom

1
same method I described above should work. Did you try it that way?
(would suggest putting the plex as Master & CD-ROM drive as Slave--but you won't be able to do on the fly copying too well like this-- but on the fly sucks anyways).
Also note that not all CD-ROM drives can be set to DMA mode.
*just to add also, I would suggest you use aspi layer 4.60 (best one out there yet *forget the newer ones).

Good luck
 
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newby

1
For 2 IDE drives running in the same chain (master & slave) the speed of the faster device or drive is as fast as the slowest device. ie; if pri. master is dma 2 & pri. slave is pio mode , then both devices will run at pio mode speed. Try upgrading your existing hardware or getting an ide controller card, if playing around w/ the positiion of the devices does not help.
 
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shadoe_phantom

1
are you sure about this newby? 'cause on this machine my Sony is DMA 2 & my Plextor is not & yet they are both running on the same IDE cable (plextor as Master & DVD-ROM drive as slave) & both are set as DMA 2.
Ofcourse it could be that my manual is wrong for this TA model (written in japanese & could have been a printing error)
 

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onesolo

1
Ok guys, I finally put my cd drives with DMA on. I simply changed the Secondary IDE Channel driver from the VIA one to the Standard IDE/ESDI Hard Disk Controller that comes with the XP.
Now CD-Rom is with Ultra DMA Mode 2 on and the CD-R with Multi-Word DMA Mode 2. By the way, can anyone tell me the difference between the two ?
I think my problem was a via driver bug, nothing occurs to me at this time....
 
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newby

1
By the way here is the link for the english manual of the plextor model W1210A (or TA),
hxxp://www.plextor.com/english/support/manuals/man_121032.zip
 
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