win2k and SATA disk issue

[burninbush]

Hi all -- a few months ago I acquired my first SATA hd, a Maxtor 320gb that was on sale. My ECS amd64 mobo is about 4 years old, has 2 SATA ports in addition to the old standard pata ports. I used ghost to clone the win2k boot partition from the pata drive I retired, if that detail matters. I run linux about 98% of the time, but occasionally boot a win2k-sp4 OS for a couple specialized tasks I can't do in linux. And on some occasions I run Nero to burn a cd or dvd while I'm there. So, the problem is, only when running win2k, the SATA disk doesn't supply data fast enough to keep my 20x dvd burners supplied with data [both burners are pata, secondary master & slave]. If I check IDE properties for the SATA disk I see it is not using udma mode, and no amount of removing/rediscovering/ or chkdisking the SATA disk will get it to show it's using DMA. All disk operations in win2k are noticeably slower than on the previous pata disk. The previous 2nd PATA disk is still in the machine and it works at udma5 no problem. There's no problem with the disk or mobo when running linux [many distros]; hdparm shows ~80MB/second transfer rate, just what I'd expect. It's a very snappy disk in linux, including burning. So, the problem is with my aged win2k. It has sp4, and various patches after that. I choose to no longer expend time upgrading it, but I really don't want to put XP or vista on it. I wouldn't mind to do a fresh install of 2k if that's the only answer, but it would be a painful task to assemble all those apps disks again. Must be other people who discovered this long before I did -- is there a patch or fix for this? The mobo bios is at the latest rev as are mobo drivers -- and as noted the machine works fine running linux. TIA for any help. Hope I'm not the last person still running win2k-pro.

[lewmur]

...So, the problem is with my aged win2k. It has sp4, and various patches after that. I choose to no longer expend time upgrading it, but I really don't want to put XP or vista on it. I wouldn't mind to do a fresh install of 2k if that's the only answer, but it would be a painful task to assemble all those apps disks again. Must be other people who discovered this long before I did -- is there a patch or fix for this? The mobo bios is at the latest rev as are mobo drivers -- and as noted the machine works fine running linux. TIA for any help. Hope I'm not the last person still running win2k-pro.

I still run w2k pro but not on a sata drive. There are only two things I can suggest. One is checking to see if the drive manufacturer has any updated driver for w2k and the other is to run w2k as a Vbox session from Linux.

[zlim]

I run 2K but not on a SATA drive.Have you tried burning anything using ImgBurn? You might want to try something in that and see if it works better than Nero.

[Tushman]

Must be other people who discovered this long before I did -- is there a patch or fix for this? The mobo bios is at the latest rev as are mobo drivers....

Look in the BIOS menu to see if there is a setting to have DMA enabled. Also check this thread out and see if any of the suggestions will help.http://www.cdrinfo.com/forum/tm.asp?m=81131---------------------------Check out this MSKB article and see if it applies to your situation.IDE ATA and ATAPI disks use PIO mode after multiple time-out or CRC errors occur Edited December 28, 2008 by Tushman

[goretsky]

Hello,I did a quick search and came across this article discussing several ways to enable DMA for hard disk drives on computers running Microsoft Windows (including Microsoft Windows 2000). Perhaps one of the solutions there will work for you.Regards,Aryeh Goretsky

[burninbush]

Thanks to all for the replies. -- it's not a bios issue; I can shutdown win2k, and boot any linux distro and the drive runs at the speed Western Digital says it should -- about 80MB/second transfers. This is about 10x as fast as win2k will transfer the same files. The 2nd hd is a pata disk that runs at normal UDMA speed. -- it's not making any errors; running chkdsk [or the win2k equivalent, can't recall the name] finds no problems, event replay has no errors. The dirty bit is not set on the drive. -- in Device Manager, IDE properties, the UDMA box is grayed-out for that drive. This is my first SATA drive, so I dunno if it is even supposed to offer the UDMA choice? I was hoping some win2k user with a sata disk could answer that for me. Do sata disks even have a PIO mode of operation? Running PCLinuxOS right now: [root@localhost ~]# hdparm -tT /dev/sda/dev/sda: Timing cached reads: 1130 MB in 2.00 seconds = 564.46 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 240 MB in 3.02 seconds = 79.41 MB/sec[root@localhost ~]#[root@localhost ~]# hdparm -tT /dev/hda/dev/hda: Timing cached reads: 1126 MB in 2.00 seconds = 562.15 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 172 MB in 3.01 seconds = 57.07 MB/sec[root@localhost ~]#

[Tushman]

Do sata disks even have a PIO mode of operation?

Sorry - I forgot you have an SATA drive. That link was for IDE.Try this link:How do I enable bus mastering (DMA) in Windows 2000? Edited December 28, 2008 by Tushman

[burninbush]

Sorry - I forgot you have an SATA drive. That link was for IDE.Try this link:How do I enable bus mastering (DMA) in Windows 2000?

Right -- thanks again, but that's the selection that's grayed-out in Device Manager, as I noted two posts up.

[Tushman]

Right -- thanks again, but that's the selection that's grayed-out in Device Manager, as I noted two posts up.

Sorry about that burninbush.......I've gotten into a terrible sleep pattern lately of staying up through the night and I am not able to focus here. I should know better than to post after I've had zero hours of sleep. <<<Step away from the keyboard....>>>

[goretsky]

Hello,The page I referenced earlier contained a VBS script file which performed several operations. Did you take a look at it to see if you had performed those same operations as it or just try running it (after backing up any important data, of course).Regards,Aryeh Goretsky

[burninbush]

Hello,The page I referenced earlier contained a VBS script file which performed several operations. Did you take a look at it to see if you had performed those same operations as it or just try running it (after backing up any important data, of course).Regards,Aryeh Goretsky

Back again -- took a while to run all the tests referenced up the thread. I'm still at ground zero, though, nothing made a bit of difference. The VBS script looks useful, may be quicker than my usual method of deleting IDE interfaces in Device Manager and rebooting, etc. for the next time win2k sets my burners to PIO. I'm convinced at this point that my aged mobo is not quite up to sata disks. So .. I'll reorganize the disks to put win2k onto the pata disk which works fine, and leave the sata disk for linux use. Thanks to those who offered help.

[burninbush]

And today I'm back, to report that I've stumbled into a fix. In desperation I decided to look at my ca. 2002 motherboard cd, see if it had any advice about SATA; it did not, but I saw that the only driver I had not tried was the one for a RAID disk array. Put that in, and voila, I now have the disk's advertised speed -- from a one-disk RAID array. Device Manager now makes sense again; there is a new entry for the RAID array [and FWIW, there's no checkbox to use DMA in its properties]. Hd-tach shows its DMA is udma6, and reads are at 78MB/second at beginning, average 66MB/second across the whole disk. I'm happy again, my beloved old win2k is back to zippy speed. Hope this might be useful to some future seeker.Oh .. for the ECS ks755a2 mobo, with SiS 755 chipset, look for a file 'raid302.zip' -- latest version.