DMA mode not available, only PIO

[Artas1984]

A friend has a Toshiba L300 notebook. HDD - Toshiba MK1652GSX.
Just installed WIN XP with SP3. Using genuine Toshiba drivers.

I know this is quite popular - in the device manager IDE/ATAPI section there is an option something like "check if DMA is available and use it if so", but both HDD and ODD work through PIO protocol only, DMA not available to select.


I tried to uninstall primary/secondary channels and reboot - did not help.
Then i followed instructions to delete the registry entries according this site:

http://winhlp.com/node/10


Did not work, though funny it helped other people, as if my friend's laptop is more besieged by some unknown demonic force than a common one...

What to do?

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

A friend has a Toshiba L300 notebook. HDD - Toshiba MK1652GSX.
Just installed WIN XP with SP3. Using genuine Toshiba drivers.

I know this is quite popular - in the device manager IDE/ATAPI section there is an option something like "check if DMA is available and use it if so", but both HDD and ODD work through PIO protocol only, DMA not available to select.


I tried to uninstall primary/secondary channels and reboot - did not help.
Then i followed instructions to delete the registry entries according this site:

http://winhlp.com/node/10


Did not work, though funny it helped other people, as if my friend's laptop is more besieged by some unknown demonic force than a common one...

What to do?

You likely have a bad cable connection.

 

[Artas1984]

You likely have a bad cable connection.

What is this, a joke? A bad cable connection would result in that i would not see devices.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

What is this, a joke? A bad cable connection would result in that i would not see devices.

Loose ATA connector contacts I believe can cause Windows to go to PIO mode.

 

[Artas1984]

"Loose"? What do you mean by that? As if this "loose" is between "totally loose" and fixed in place... You really mean that cables might be mechanically not tighten enough?

 

[MARCI]

Yes, the socket or plug could be slightly worn, or a little loose. This would cause errors, and trigger PIO mode

 

[Artas1984]

No i was wrong from the begining - his HDD & ODD devices are sata. How can this be at all? How can sata devices use transfer protocol for IDE? WTF help me understsnd.. I thought that PIO and DMA protocols only work for IDE devices.

So what now? I mean the HDD and ODD are connected very tight..

 

[ratbuddy]

Is there an option in BIOS to run the SATA drives in IDE mode or something?

 

[Artas1984]

No, AHCI or SATA only. The BIOS is so naked, that there almost is not anything..

 

[JCLW]

SATA drives are IDE drives - I think you're confusing PATA and IDE.

Is the BIOS set to AHCI or SATA (Legacy)?

You should really have it set to AHCI (which will probably require you to reinstall windows if it wasn't in AHCI mode when you ran windows setup).

edit: you do have the intel chipset drivers installed? http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=816&DwnldID=18053&lang=eng

 

[ratbuddy]

SATA drives are IDE drives - I think you're confusing PATA and IDE.

I know that and you know that, but the sad fact is, many BIOS screens actually call it IDE mode.

edit: I knew someone would say something like that before I even made that post, but here's an example of what I mean: http://www.chotocheeta.com/2008/06/...d-running-under-pata-mode-via-bios-emulation/