[navnut]

Advanced settings for my primary IDE are "DMA if available" for device 0 with a current transfer mode of "PIO".
Device 1 "DMA if availabble", current transfer mode "Not applicable.
Advanced settings for secondary IDE for Device 0 is "DMA if available" current transfer mode "Ultra DMA mode 2" which is exactly the same for Device 1.

[spot]

There's your culprit then. Whatever's forcing the master IDE to PIO instead of DMA is trashing your speed. Try swapping the cables, maybe it's kinked in the past and it can't handle the rated transfer speed. I can't simulate what's in front of you so I can't see what you can adjust to switch back to DMA but that's your objective.

If someone reads the thread who has XP in front of them they might go and find the right pull-down list or checkbox.

[navnut]

A7N8X2.0 Rev2.
2048 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'DDR1' has 1024 MB
Slot 'DDR2' has 1024 MB
Slot 'DDR3' is Empty
These modules are 1G 184 pin unbuff DIMM 128MX64 DDR PC3200 if that helps.

[navnut]

Swapped cables with no change in performance.

[philthomas]

There is a well known fault in XP, whereby the DMA setting will revert to PIO, after several unsuccessful read attempts and then will stay there.

Try going to Device Mangler/IDE ATA ATAPI Controllers, right click the Primary Channel and select "Uninstall", confirm your choice and then reboot the PC.

Now check to see if the Device 0 is set to DMA. If it isn't then there may be a fault with your IDE cable, as spot said, or it may be the sign that your drive is going bad.

Having said all that, this may not help with slow boot up times if the problem is before XP, as this setting only applies in XP ..... but it will certainly speed things up from the point where XP is .loaded.

[navnut]

Will anything happen to the contents of the hard drive if i uninstall?

[philthomas]

No ... it will be fine. When the machine reboots, it will automatically reinstall the IDE Controller and redetect & reinstall the drive. Just give it a few mins, when you see the New Hardware found message.

[spot]

Well done Phil, I'd assumed it was selectable on that Device Driver property tab, I'd no idea it took such extreme measures to make it revert.

[philthomas]

Originally Posted by spot Well done Phil, I'd assumed it was selectable on that Device Driver property tab, I'd no idea it took such extreme measures to make it revert.

Yeah .... in theory you should be able to change the setting, but the bug in XP, prevents the change from being captured, hence the uninstall procedure.
This normally flushes out the glitch, unless of coursr, ther's a hardware problem.

[navnut]

Many thanks for that i am now on Ultra DMA mode 2.
Just wandering as i have taken out the cmos battery previously and set bios to default optimise settings would i need to adjust anything in there for additional performance?
Thanks again to all the posters for their replys, you cant buy this kind of support.

[navnut]

Hi again
I am now again trying to read my old hard drive. The problem now is that both the BIOS and Windows see the hard drive and even the used and free space on the drive. But when i enter the drive in XP i cannot see a dam thing not one single file and explorer says there are zero objects in the folder.

Any suggestions
Thank you