Second DVD-Rom Drive Transfer mode stuck on PIO 1

[butterfm]

Hi,

I have a Dell 4550 which was bought with a single DVD-Rom/CD-RW combo drive. I have since added a DVD-RW.
Both drives are on the Secondry IDE channel with the DVD-RW set to master and the DVD-Rom/CD-RW set to slave. The jumpers on the back of the drives are set to slave and master - not cable select.

The problem i'm having is that the Transfer mode on the DVD-Rom/CD-RW (slave) is set to PIO mode and can't be changed. The DVD-RW (master) is set to Ultra DMA 2 which is what I would like the slave drive transfer mode to be set to.

I have a friend who has a Dell 4600 with 2 Drives set up in the same way as me and the transfer mode on both his drives is Ultra DMA 2. The only difference is that he is using cable select. When I set the jumpers on my drives to cable select the slave drive is not picked up.

Anybody have any suggestions as to why I am stuck in PIO mode on the slave drive. Is there any way of changing this or am I stuck with it ?

Cheers,
Matt.

 

[satrow]

Make sure that the end of the IDE cable goes to the master and the middle to the slave. Try jumpering to manual in that position.
If that doesn't work, reverse the drives and change the jumpers to suit.
Then, if still no go set to cable select on it's own; check Windows/Bios position (master or slave), shutdown and jumper the other manually.
Then reverse the final (mixed) procedure.
I hope that's not too confusing!

Andy.

 

[butterfm]

Thanks Andy - That makes perfect sense. I'll give it a go.

Matt.

 

[BadBigBen]

Hi there, also check BIOS setting (DMA may be turned off for the secondary Master aswell as set to PIO 0)...

another possibility - Drive may not function properly (DMA may be not functioning)...

Ben

 

[butterfm]

Hi Ben,

I think you might have hit the nail on the head with the BIOS setting.
I tried swapping the drives around a bit and it doesn't seem to have made a difference so I'll try looking at the BIOS later.

I think the drive is functioning OK. Before I got the DVD-RW the DVD-ROM/CD-RW was running as the master on the secondry IDE channel and it was transferring in DMA mode.

Thanks for your help, I'll let you know if it's successful.

Matt.

 

[satrow]

You could try one or the other as slave to your boot disk....depending on whether the main task is to copy or to create.

Andy.

 

[cdogg]

I can tell you right now that the position on the cable shouldn't make a difference when using the master and slave jumper settings. The only time a position should have any effect is when you use cable select.

Have you tried temporarily disconnecting the DVD-RW drive to see if the DVDROM starts running in DMA again?


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[butterfm]

Hi All,

Thanks very much for all your help and suggestions. It turned out that Ben was correct and that it was a setting in the BIOS. Don't know if this is specific to Dell Machines or not.

Thanks again,

Matt.

 

[BadBigBen]

butterfm - I don't think that this is Dell specific, but I think more likely that sometime in the past someone messed with the BIOS settings...

Ben