Slave harddrive = choppy video

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 3/27/2006, 9:58 PM
1. Find the My Computer icon on your desktop. Right-click on it and select "Manage."

2. Under "Storage," click on "Disk Management." You should see Disk 0, Disk 1, etc.

Find your disk drive and tell us everything it says on the main screen, including whether you see more than one partition on this drive.

3. Right-click on this drive and select Properties. This should bring up a dialog that has General, Tools, Hardware, Sharing, and Quota across the top. On the General tab, clear the "Allow indexing service ... " tab and Apply. May take a minute to finish if you have lots of files on the drive. The indexing service is evil and will slow down your drive.

4. Go to the Tools section and click on Check Now. Put a check mark in "Automatically fix file system errors" and then click start. Reboot your system to finish the check. It will take about a minute to do the disk test if your disk is not too full and if no errors are found. Watch the screen during re-boot to see if any errors are reported.

5. Go to the Hardware tab and click on the Properties button. On the dialog that comes up, click on the Policies tab and make sure Optimize for Performance is enabled and that the "Enable write caching on the disk" is checked.

Click OK a few times to exit all the dialogs.

6. Open Control Panel, double-click on the System icon, select the Hardware tab and then select the Device Manager button. (If you can't find this through Control Panel, right-click on My Computer, select Properties and then select Hardware, then Device Manager).

7. Find the IDE Controllers line, and then double-click on the Primary IDE Channel. I assume that you have your two hard disks attached to the primary channel (probably wouldn't boot if you made a mistake and attached them to the secondary channel).

8. Click on the Advanced Settings tab. You should see "Transfer Mode" for Device 0 and Device 1. I know you looked at this in one of your earlier posts, but just to humor me, let me know what it says for Current Transfer Mode for each Device (not "Transfer Mode," which is the second line, but "Current Transfer Mode," which is the third line).

You can also download the Nero Infotool from this site:

http://www.cdspeed2000.com/

and run that. It will tell you not only about DMA issues, but many other things about your computer as well (click on the configuration tab).

By the way, what kind of video are you trying to play?
ski wrote on 3/28/2006, 8:33 AM
I followed last post step by step.
Under disk managment:
Old harddrive(master) C: Partition Basic NTFS Healthy FAult Tollerance(no) Overhead (0%)
It said the exact same thing for the new slave harddrive

In response to last post #8
Current transfer mode:
Device 0 Ultra DMA Mode 5
Device 1 PIO Mode (I have DMA if available selected)
maybe this PIO is my problem, if so what can I do about it?
jaydeeee wrote on 3/28/2006, 9:36 AM
Ya know...I hate to say this..., sorry if this sounds rude
but at this stage, this person with the HD problem is a perfect candidate for bringing it into a computer repair shop. Just ante up and bring it to a reputable place and let them fix.

Red Flag 1 - so you run out of room on a 40 gig hd, and then you buy an 80 gig?...as an "upgrade"?
Man, I got a bridge to sell you. I could find you an incredible deal on a 160 gig hd, or 250 gig hd.

Red flag 2 - user can't even give you all the brand and model of the hd ("Hard drive is 7200 Windows XP Triple checked...." )
See what I'm saying here?

I'm sorry this sounds cruel, but why expend this much energy to this problem?

Ski -- list the name and model of the hd (at least). With forums, you can't be lazy in listing your system specifics. That way you have a chance at solving these problems with system basics such as this.

Oh and avoid using CS (cable select), many ctrls have issues with this anyway. With ide it should be master or slave. The slave gets the middle conenctor, the master gets the connector at the end, that's it.
But that's all we can say because we don't know the specifics of your system (apparently, neither do you).
You could have ctrlr/driver issues or any number of possible issues (we don't know - you won't list your system details).

I mean, look at all these replies - and we still don't know the hd model/brand (nor the ctrlr/mobo it resides in).

I'm sorry but sometimes you have to keep things real in order to help people.
MarkWWW wrote on 3/28/2006, 11:33 AM
Yes, the problem is that you are running Device 1 in PIO mode (assuming that Device 1 is your new drive).

You need to make sure that it is running in a DMA mode - if it's a new drive it will probably be UDMA5 or UDMA6.

If you don't know how to do this then the quickest way to sort things out is probably to run the resetdma.vbs available from here.

Mark
johnmeyer wrote on 3/28/2006, 12:43 PM
Device 1 PIO Mode (I have DMA if available selected). Maybe this PIO is my problem, if so what can I do about it?

**** --->> BINGO!!!! <<---- ****

Go back to my very first post. This is what I suspected from the very beginning, and I think I said it rather forcefully (he said, patting himself on the back).

With PIO mode, your disk will not work for much of anything. Performance will be about 10% of what the disk is capable of achieving. Follow my directions in the previous post for getting to the Control Panel, and then to the device manager, and then to the IDE Primary Controller. Once there, change the setting from PIO to DMA, and then reboot. Then, go back to the Control Panel and make sure the DMA setting has "stuck." If it has, your problems will be over, I guarantee it..

You can leave the disks set up for Master/Slave or for Cable Select, whichever one you happen to have it set to at the moment (since I know you changed this back and forth several times). If these settings are not correct, the darn thing won't work at all. If it is working to some degree, once you get the DMA thing sorted out, you don't have to go back and re-visit this.


jaydeeee wrote on 3/28/2006, 2:48 PM
>> If these settings are not correct, the darn thing won't work at all. If it is working to some degree, once you get the DMA thing sorted out, you don't have to go back and re-visit this.<<<

BINGO what? You just explained how PIO is worse than DMA mode. Does anybody NOT see the prob with PIO and need an explanation of it compared to dma?

If he can't set to dma, we're talking about looking into the ide drivers for a possible update/reinstall fix (or possibly easier solution to try first: install/check the intel app acell - if he's running an intel sys. That might force DMA properly).
Essentially, i'd be looking at two things BARRING PROPER CABLE/HARDWRE SETUP: the ide drivers and the hd itself

So we're talking the motherboard really (drivers) unless he's using a separate ctrlr card (I doubt).
I WONDER which mobo he has? I really wonder what HD he has. I wonder what else is installed on there and how it's installed.
Catch my drift?

After that, my bet is landing on an older cheap/poorly designed hd. Needs to go in and manually adjust if possible.

Sorry, i'm in a mood...but it's like watching forum 20 questions with this guy. List the damn sys specifics. It just plain "helps others help him".
johnmeyer wrote on 3/28/2006, 3:12 PM
BINGO what? You just explained how PIO is worse than DMA mode. Does anybody NOT see the prob with PIO and need an explanation of it compared to dma?

Well, "bingo" in the sense that I am sure that this is his problem. You are certainly right that it is possible he might not be able to simply change PIO to DMA in the Control Panel. However, usually that's all it requires, and I'm pretty confident that's all it will take. I've installed a lot of disks, and often the default installation sets the drive to PIO and all that is required is to change it and reboot.

The only extra step I've had to take in the "modern" era of hard drives (and this is a brand-new drive), is with some Dell computers that mask the DMA/PIO setting and require that it be set using their own utility. If it comes to that, I have steps I can provide to walk him through that procedure.
rmack350 wrote on 3/28/2006, 3:13 PM
Hah! I understand your feelings here, Jaydeeee.

Actually, I just learned something from JohnMeyer. I'd never followed the device settings for a drive controller as far as he described. I did this morning and, guess what? I have an SATA drive that's reverted down to PIO mode. The thing had been giving me troubles for ages and I'd just never needed to address it.

The thing is that it was part of a matching pair of sata drives, and one works fine. I think the point here is that this could just be a bad drive. Same might go for Ski.

In Ski's case: bad drive, bad cable, maybe the disc was once paired with an optical disc and Windows has forever more flagged it for PIO mode? (Does that happen?)

Rob Mack

johnmeyer wrote on 3/28/2006, 3:23 PM
In Ski's case: bad drive, bad cable, maybe the disc was once paired with an optical disc and Windows has forever more flagged it for PIO mode? (Does that happen?)

Yes. If it does, then the usual fix is to delete the Primary IDE Controller driver (just highlight it when in the Device Manager and press the DEL key), reboot, and let WinXP re-install. 9/10 times that fixes the problem. However, since this is a new install and, as I pointed out earlier, Windows often defaults to PIO, since it is the most "compatible" way of accessing a disk. This ensures that you can get to a new drive to change any settings. Once it is set up, you then switch to DMA. That's how the MS engineers were thinking when they set it up that way.
jaydeeee wrote on 3/28/2006, 5:54 PM
>>>Yes. If it does, then the usual fix is to delete the Primary IDE Controller driver (just highlight it when in the Device Manager and press the DEL key), reboot, and let WinXP re-install. 9/10 times that fixes the problem. However, since this is a new install and, as I pointed out earlier, Windows often defaults to PIO, since it is the most "compatible" way of accessing a disk. This ensures that you can get to a new drive to change any settings. Once it is set up, you then switch to DMA. That's how the MS engineers were thinking when they set it up that way. <<<

Sorry, I don't agree there. 9 times out of 10? It can fix it, but it's rare.
It's really the other way around, until you address proper setup (cabling/jumpers/bios recognition) and/or offer a change to the proper/updated drivers you'll be going in circles. You could remove and re-recognize all day unless this is done.

The other key as I mentioned is the bios ide settings (again with the mobo jaydee?). Newer systems ide ctrlr default to whatever the bios recognizes those drives (now you get to wonder what bios he uses). I would have ski recognize the drives in the bios...if it has trouble there, then it's safe to say he should return the drive (and thank god, go buy a larger drive for an upgrade).
Then there's also chipset driver concerns, etc (more mobo).

But...we don't even know this kids system speed (much less any other details).

Eziest answer? Let's assume Mr. 80 gig upgrade got it fixed and help those who know how to ask for help.
ski wrote on 3/28/2006, 6:44 PM
Sorry Jaydee. I will do any thing at this point. I have been to 2 different computer shops with this problem, and I still have the same problem. i am not trying to waste anybodys time, I just want to fix my problem
ski wrote on 3/28/2006, 6:52 PM
Jaydee, I have already brought my computer into 2 different computer shops, and still have the same problem. That is why I'm on this forum. I am certainly not an expert, so what ever details that are not provided let me no and I will post them. I appreciate all the help from everybody else.
jrazz wrote on 3/28/2006, 6:57 PM
Eziest answer? Let's assume Mr. 80 gig upgrade got it fixed and help those who know how to ask for help.

Cut the guy a break. You are in a mood today. If you checked his post record you would see he has under 20 posts and who knows how many times he has had to open up the case and peer into the silicon valley. I bet probably less than 10 times and probably the majority of those times was to mess around with his cables and hard drive. Do I know that for sure? No. But I would rather give him the benefit of the doubt than give him a hard time.

If every time you posted a question on here and someone ragged you about not posting the DC coefficient setting, the color primaries for render, the matrix coefficients, etc and you didn't know they existed or where to find them and you asked and then someone ragged you for not knowing where they were... well, it's just not that conducive for learning.

Forums are for learning and some are further along than others; cut him a break.

j razz
Steve Mann wrote on 3/28/2006, 7:15 PM
You haven't helped much by answering any of the questions previously asked. Look back through the threads and answer the questions. You're asking us to diagnose in the dark.

What city are you in?
johnmeyer wrote on 3/28/2006, 9:42 PM
Jaydee, I have already brought my computer into 2 different computer shops, and still have the same problem. That is why I'm on this forum. I am certainly not an expert, so what ever details that are not provided let me no and I will post them. I appreciate all the help from everybody else.

I must say, I am not very happy to have given the guy the answer and not even had an acknowledgement as to whether it worked or not. In addition, I get to listen to an earful from a guy that wants to let me know how much he doesn't know about things.
ken c wrote on 3/29/2006, 1:33 AM
thanks John re the indexing service tip, that's one even I didn't know about ... will test it out, eg de-indexing files on HDs... you're a sharp guy, appreciate it..

ken

p.s. dimes will get you dollars the guy asking for help is an aol user too ... (what IS it about them?? lol)
ski wrote on 3/29/2006, 4:16 AM
I just tried to toggle from DMA to PIO and back to DMA, it is still transfering in PIO. Thanks Jonhmeyer for identifying problem, I followed your advice and deleted the primary IDE and rebooted. Windows reinstalled the primary IDE, but Device 1 is still transferring in PIO. I tried to toggle them again, did not work. I tried MarkWWW advice and went to resetdma.vbs followed links to reset DMA, still did not work.
Frustrated,
Ski
rmack350 wrote on 3/29/2006, 7:10 AM
Not surprising. Linux also defaults to safer settings.

I'm curious what can prompt windows to do this (since I had two identical drives and one was downgraded to PIO. I think the downgraded drive was quietly throwing errors and Windows downgraded it. Just a guess. And the focus should be on Ski's problem.)

Rob
rmack350 wrote on 3/29/2006, 7:38 AM
Look, you've got a drive that runs in DMA mode as long as it has an IDE controller all to itself, but it won't play well with others. You've seemingly gotten the cables and jumpers right. In the end you want to keep your optical discs on the secondary IDE so all HDD must be on the primary IDE cable.

Here are the options as I see them.
--Return the 80GB drive or
--Retire the 40 GB drive

If you decide to retire the 40 GB drive here's what I'd do. Go get yourself a copy of Norton Ghost or Casper XP (or maybe 7tools, I forget if that can copy a disc). Temporarily put the 80 gb drive onto the secondary IDE and then use one of these programs to clone the 40 gb disc onto it. When done, replace the 40 with the 80 and see if the system boots. It should, and almost everything should work. I usually have to reinstall Vegas and DVDa, and maybe photoshop or even Windows may ask to be reauthorized. That's all, pretty easy.

At that point you might want to consider getting yet another disc drive for video. If you can go SATA you should since there's no fiddling with jumpers or cable positions.

Rob Mack
johnmeyer wrote on 3/29/2006, 8:34 AM
I'm afraid I have to agree with an earlier poster that this problem is not something you are going to be able to solve by yourself. The fact that your computer came with a 40GB drive means that it is probably 4-5 years old, perhaps older. There is an incompatibility that perhaps is due to a BIOS issue, the use of the wrong ribbon cable (I know you've tried several), or because Windows has changed some registry values to enforce PIO mode (which apparently it can do if it sees disk transfer problems more than a few times, which may have happened during your earlier installation attempts).

The only last idea I can suggest would be to use System Restore (if it is installed and active on your computer) which you will find in the Accessories --> System Tools portion of your Start button. If this is installed, you should restore your computer to a date prior to your first installation attempt. Reboot, and then change the PIO setting back to DMA. Reboot and see if it sticks.

That's about all I can do to help you.

ski wrote on 3/29/2006, 9:48 AM
Meyer, Rmack, and everybody else thanks for all the help and being patient. You guys taught me alot. I am going to try the system restore.
rmack350 wrote on 3/29/2006, 5:17 PM
The one nice thing about Ghost or Casper XP is that you can make a copy of the drive before you even start to run restore. Gives you a fair backup if you have troubles.

Rob Mack
Steve Mann wrote on 3/29/2006, 11:23 PM
It's quite possible that a drive that old won't support DMA mode with any other drive on the same controller.

Steve

(Missed you at the Vegas Retreat).
johnmeyer wrote on 3/30/2006, 7:14 AM
It's quite possible that a drive that old won't support DMA mode with any other drive on the same controller.

Interesting point. That would be easy to test, by putting the new drive on the secondary cable, with the CD/DVD drives temporarily detatched.