It really works!!! After hour of trial & error, installing IAA (and getting a very fast HD but no DVD/CDR anymore) editing the registry saved my day.

Thanks for the help

Norbert

Some of you may find the DMACHK utility from Microsoft useful for this purpose. There are useful notes on that website too.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/q191/7/74.asp&NoWebContent=1

I did it and it works
I am now the most happy man on earth

Thanks a lot for your help

Christian

It works…

Better: set TimingModeAllowed for the specific IDE drive to 0xffffffff. This will prevent the problem from re-occuring again

Thanks, this was very useful! You can also enable Ultra DMA 66 with a simple such trick

Edit the key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000

and add a new DWORD value called EnableUDMA66 with a value of 1.

Or, here save this as a *.reg file and execute it

——
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000]
“EnableUDMA66”=dword:00000001
——

HTH

Thanks a lot for this hint. It saved me a lot of anger and frustration…

Thumbs up!

Any of these tricks don’t work with my computer CD-ROM drive stays in PIO-mode.

Any more ideas I could try?

Thanks,

Cowboy

Shanx, I have EPOX 8RDA3i motherboard (nForce2) and Samsung’s DVD/CD-RW compo drive.

I even tried to re-install Windows XP (and service pack1), but that didn’t work either. With newest nForce2 chipset drivers I can activate DMA from Device Manager for this secondary IDE channel, but when I put CD into drive my computer get stucked. It recovers when I took CD out!

Seems that my compo drive is broken or something wrong in motherboard? BIOS setting should be OK.

-Cowboy

Excellent. My DVD writer is back to prime time condition. What a difference! Went from 1.5+ hour burn time to 8 minutes! Thanks a bunch for this post.

Thanks for this. I was having major problems with crappy DVD playback which I found was likely to be a problem through not having DMA enabled (drive was set to use DMA but was still using PIO).
Done the edit, popped in a disc, and I had smooth playback. Which was just as well cos it was starting to drive me up the wall.

Many thanks

Another thing that worked for me…..switch the jumpers on the DVD/CD players. I physically changed the jumpers, so one is now the slave (instead of master) and the other player is now the master (instead of slave). This apparently forces the XP operating system to reassign the DMA/PIO modes.

Worked fine for me.

—-bob

Hi I’m using memories to tv and keep getting burn problems on the last album I create on the disc, I have enough space on the disc, I burn at 2 speed to douible make sure, do think this would help if I change it to DMA settings… complete newbie here, where do I go into to find regedit?

thanks for looking

SuSE 9.1 will have DMA built in, so the cd and dvd writing is significantly faster. Go linux! Here’s a link to SUSE 9.1. Enjoy.

You are a god, My box is working at full speed now.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!!!!

Alex

Hi.
I tried some of these tweeks(getting DMACHECK from microsoft or editing the registry) and they worked fine at the first reboot.But after a few hours Pio mode is back.Any idee how to make the change to DMA irreversible?
I’m having problems with my Asus CDRW on a ECSK7vta6 motherboard.

Folks, am experiencing same problems but as a neophyte have a few quick questions.
First, where are you setting DMA modes for drives from? BIOS? Or someplace else? In XP? I can’t find the settings in the specific drive properties, or under Device Manager either on My Computer of System. Where are the settings at?
Also, GTP (1/13/04 post): where and how do I find the TimingModeAllowed setting for the specific IDE that you mentioned?
Finally, Net2u (post 3/23/04): when you switched jumpers on yr DVD and CDRW drives, which driver did you make the master, and which the slave?
Thanks for all yr help, I’m too much of a neophyte to comftably edit the registry unless I have to.
Best,
Doug

Thanks, works well i can now copy a CD at a speed other than 3X… Cheers

Same problem, every once in a while. Why does it do that? I haven’t done the reg edit, but will keep it in mind. A different stroke that has worked for me was deleting the secondary IDE driver in hardware manager, then let WinXP (pro in my case) re-detect and re-install the driver — comes back in DMA mode 2 (ATA33).

Thanks,
DavidB

System: Plextor 708A DVDR/W & 4824A CDR/W on an ABIT KT7A-RAID mobo, AMD XP2400+ with 1.5 GB RAM and XP Pro.

Great hint….

Saved me a lot of anger and problems I was having with running my burner at full speed.

Regards,

Stefan

If windows XP detects more than x number of errors from a storage device it _permanently_ drops back the transfer method to a “safer” mode. A paranoid strategy like this may be justifiable for dodgy hard drives with uncertain interfaces or dodgy cabling but it’s not good when it’s triggered by a scratch on a CD/DVD, which it almost always is. Post 4 from GTP may be the solution to this brain-dead fallback scheme. You can find read errors recorded in the Event Viewer, BTW.

Actually I was wrong: Post 4 from GTP isn’t going to address the transfer method fallback system; it’s built into XP. Changing TimingModeAllowed will have no effect on this problem re-occuring as XP will change this setting if enough errors are detected. Question: is there a registry setting that controls the number of read errors detected before XP will retard the data transfer method of a device??? If that was set to a very high number, this problem wouldn’t occur in the first place. Any ideas?

Sorry for all these posts in a row. The Microsloth Noknowlege Base talks about this problem here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472&Product=winxp. It basically says “wait for the next service pack”. Replacement ATAPI drivers are only available through a manual request to MS support (weird or what?!), and then you need to edit the registry. BTW: VIA has it’s own drivers but they cause Nero to fail burning any DVD or CD on my computer (Epox 8KHA+ KT266A based m/b).

I have read all the information about getting out of safe mode, but have tried everything and am unable to do so. I had someone come to my place to fix my computer as there were viruses on my PC. He installed Adware and Norton and there was some adware viruses that came up after scanning was complete. The recommendation after I deleted some, but wasn’t able to delete others, was to restart the computer in safe mode and try to delete them again. Now, my mouse is not working and I’m only able to scan with Norton, not Adware. Also, when I get to the menu to start the computer normally or to go back to msconfig and deselect safe mode, I’m unable to. Any suggestions??? Thank you.

Kirk,

Download the KB824146 RPC worm patch for your version of Windows from Microsoft and the latest version of Stinger.exe from McAfee’s websitehttp://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/).
When while booted up in Windows, unhook your internet connection and reinstall Windows overtop of your current installation which will keep all of your settings but revert you back to the SP level of your install CD. Then when your back up and running again immediately install the KB824146 patch, reboot, run Stinger.exe to scan Drive C: then plug back into the internet and keep running Windows Update over and over again to get back all of the critical updates (bug fixes too, I’ll bet…).

Hi all.
I have problems with my HItachi(IBM) Deskstar 120GB Harddrive, Windows xp shows that the drive is working in PIO mode even If I´ve chosen DMA if possible, and I cannot change it manually, tried that register solution and nothing happend, tried DMACHECK.EXE and there the DMA was dsabled, I enabled it and rebooted and same shit again, PIO mode on the drive, what to do??? Please help. I´ve been trying to solve this problem for a month now without any results.

My comp. is:
MSI k7N2-Delta motherboard.
AMD 1700 XP
512 DDR
Geforce 4 MX 440
Hitachi(IBM) Deskstar 120GB

Please help me, I´ve gone bold now, tearing my hear of, this shit is driving me insane. please please anyone help.

Best regards, Ivve
Ivve_v@hotmail.com

Hi i use win xp and every time i open my pc autoexec.nt is missing.

PLEASE HELP….

THANKS all for the informations about getting back to DMA mode in Windows XP.

Baggio,
what you didn’t say is, “After reparing windows I get this error message” yes, this occurs after repairing windows.

A: There is another copy located in the \Windows\repair directory, then again this may be empty after the reapir, look in the i386 folder for a copy of the file.

… and place it here: c:\windows\system32\autoexec.nt

Thanks jkue but after a restart this file is missing again.Every time i openning my pc i must copy this file from repair directory to c:\windows\system32\?
Another way?

Thanks again.

try disabling system restore, then copy the file there, now re-start. It should work.

This should eleviate your problem: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324767

Hi,

The mod corrupted Norton Protected Recycle Bin on all of my eight drives, (using global setting).
This was minor and easily rectified, I noticed the change after reboot straight away access if very fast.

Cheers.

Nick

It works!

THANKS A MILLION TIMES!

Upon adding 2 new HDs to my system, W2K wouldn’t run my 2nd slave (slave on IDE controller #2) in DMA even tho my 1st slave, same HD make/model, ran fine in DMA on the 1st IDE controller…

Strange that the SlaveID was OK (it re-detected the same ID) but that TimingModeAllowed was stuck at $10 (IIRC) instead of $ffffffff/all.

Thank the Gods this thread was here! “4D36E96A!” Right! That’s so obvious! !*%$@#^ M$…

Turns out I sometimes have Event 9 (The device, \Device\Ide\IdePort1, did not respond within the timeout period) on that HD, which explains why W2k forced it back down to PIO-mode. The HD’s in a removable casing, probably causing some interference; I’ll play w/ the cables and all and see what gives…

Thanks again for the help.

I am having the same problem changing the DMA setting for my D: drive. It is all alone on the Second IDE channel. I have tried the regedit deal and it did not work. I have the following set up running Windows 2000.

ASUS MB w/ AMD 1.33 GHz Processor
768 MB Ram
ATI Radeon 7000
Hauppauge 250-MCE
WD 20 GB HD
Hitachi 250 GB HD
Soundblaster Live Value sound card

How do I get the Hitachi 250 Gig on the second IDE controller to switch from PIO to DMA?

Help!

I am tearing my hair out with hard drive stuck in PIO mode and so sluggish it is unusable.
Same problem with maxtor Diamondmax 9 160 Gb and HItachi Deskstar 250 Gb. Whether I place them as master or slave on primary channel.
I have tried all registry fixes, dmacheck, unistall primary ide several times and even got hotfix from MS which will not install on SP2.
I even unistalled SP2 to run the hotfix which then ran but did not fix the problem.
The basic problem seems to be whatever I do I still end up with atapi.sys dated 2001 and connot update this anyhow.
Spent over 1 and a half hours on MS support to no avail
System is:
XP Home SP2
Athlon 1.4 Ghz
Motherboard Asus A7A266-E (latest BIOS)
Graphics ATI Radeon 9200
Master HDD Maxtor
Slave HDD Hitachi Destkstar
Both in primary IDE with ultra UDMA 80 connection round cable top of range belkin
Jumpers all set appropriately.
I’ve never been defeated by a PC problem before but this one is driving me to despair and I have wasted >2 weeks on it.
Can anyohne help please??

Thanks, it worked and I am a very happy camper now.Thanks again

Hi,

Thanks for the registry info. I have probs with Liteon SOHW633S dvdrw. I changed it to the master rom, but still using 100 cpu with any dvd editing programme. One thing, the 2 registry deletions in 0001 come back again on reboot ? dma seems OK, but on master properties it says under device 01 that it’s dma if available - then current transfer mode = not applicable (shaded box). Is this right ? I’m XP, 512 ddr ram, 128mb nvidea 9200, 60gb hdd (45% used) Pinnacle tv ‘rave’ card.

Any ideas please ? Many thanks.

Absolute legend thread. This problem was killing me for a week until I found this.

It works!!! Thanks!!! I resolved my HDD - PIO only problem. The XP SP2 system detected my second HDD as PIO. “Setting to DMA if available” was no use. And even deleting the IDE controler driver didn’t work: after restart I had DMA, but when trying to write something to the drive the system freezed and the PIO mode was set again.

But your idea works! Thanks a lot! Now I have DMA on both drives!

Thanks for the info, it worked like a charm. I started having problems last night after i installed a slave HD on the second IDE. Was writing in 1x/reading in 2x instead of 4x. Took the new HD out and was still slugish. Then noticed i was stuck in PIO, this was the second site i checked and found the answer Yay \o/

IDE1= HDD + HDD
IDE2= DVDWriter

Excellent reg hack - back to normal! Thanks.

When i change it, it works but the next day i turn on the pc its back with PIO. What should i do?

Thank you very much for your reg solution, I was having this problem for several days with my boot drive. Now is solved.

Gracias!!!

Si funciona, y funciona muy bien

I had problems with the speed of my DVD drive and tried the trick mentioned here with the regedit.

Great..!
I’ve been busy a week to get it going, now was done in 5 minuts.

Txs..!

You’re a god that deserves their own planet!
Thank You very much for ending my agony.

Many thanks to the writer of the reg.hack fix.
My Plextor 708a started running at a snails pace & I knew something was not right with the controller setting but didn’t know how to fix.
Applied the reg. change suggestion, now drive is back up to normal rip & burn speed.
Once again a Big Thanks
Russ.R

You are a LEGEND!!!
2 OS reinstall, several dvd shrink install / reinstall, different versions and then you fix it with this info in 5 min. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Well, it didn’t work for me, can’t get the DMA to work, it always sticks on PIO. Win XP on a P4 1.8GHz, msi mobo, nothing special, always worked in DMA mode untill a few days ago.

A very BIG

THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!
THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!

It really wokred for me now, no more crawling speeds!!

Thanks again!!!!

hey all. it was asked before, and if it was answered i missed it. where do i find the TimingModeAllowed to change it?

I have Hitachi Deskstar 120GB at work, and no matter what I try it is in PIO mode. HDD is primary slave. Primary master is Maxtor and it work in Ultra DMA Mode 2.
Computer is Dell Opteron, and Maxtor is original HDD in it.
OS is Win XP SP2.

Weee It really works!!!. After alll troubleshout it was so easy.

/Many thanks

Does all these tricks work for enabling dma in my hard disk?

Does anyone know how to get a drive to work at the highest DMA Mode it supports? My drive supports Mode 6 but it is set at Mode 2 in XP.

Please help!!

Fixed HIGH CPU Usage when burining problem.
It worked a treat on my Windows XP machine. I deleted all the values as suggested, and then removed the Controller that had the CDROM drive on it from Computer Manager\Devices. I did a reboot and then it automatically detected everything again and now uses only ~1% CPU when buring instead of 40-50% CPU. The www.sysinternals.com procexp.exe was a useful program for determing the cause of my high CPU prblem too.

THANKS!

If your system uses an Intel chipset you can install the Intel Application Accelerator instead of the Microsoft IDE driver. The Intel driver gives you explicit control over DMA modes thru a separate utility program. I noticed one of my laptops running really slowly, saw it was in PIO mode, and none of the other fixes worked. Uninstalling the device and switching to the Intel driver made that problem go away. The IAA is a free download from www.intel.com.

By the way, version 2.2 is the last one with explicit support for Mobile (laptop) chipsets, and it’s too old to recognize the Centrino chipset. However, I got the 2.3 drivers to install on my laptop by adding some entries to the driver’s .INF file. The i855 chipset has an 82801DBM IDE controller, and the driver only recognizes 82801DB. But according to the datasheets, 82801DBM and 82801DB are functionally equivalent, so it’s a safe mod.

To install - run the setup program with the “-A” switch which just copies the drivers onto “C:\Program Files\Intel\Intel Application Accelerator” without installing them. Then go into that directory, in the Win2K_XP directory, and make a backup of the IdeChnDr.inf file. (You may want the original in case you screw up the mod.)

The device identifier for the 82801DB is already in the inf file, “PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_24CB”. You need to add the ID of the 82801DBM, which is “PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_24CA”.

You have to add 3 lines to the inf file:

at line 38 insert this:
ExcludeFromSelect=PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_24CA

at line 79 insert this:

; ICH-4M - 82801DBM
%PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_24CA.DeviceDesc%=IdeBusDr_Inst, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_24CA

at line 151 insert this:
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_24CA.DeviceDesc=”Intel(R) 82801DBM Ultra ATA Controller”

Then go into the Device Manager, under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, and update the driver for the Ultra ATA controller that’s already there. Select “Install from a list or specific location”, / NEXT, then
“Don’t search…” / NEXT, then
Have Disk, browse to the Intel...\Win2K_XP directory to make it load with the Inf file you edited.

Don’t restart the computer, follow the same procedure to update the drivers for the Primary and Secondary IDE channels on this controller first, and then restart.

Hi guys. I follow the directions above and delete every occurrence of MasterIdDataChecksum and SlaveIdDataChecksum under the correct key, but it is not working. In fact after I reboot, MasterIdDataChecksum and SlaveIdDataChecksum are back in the registry under the same key. Am I doing something wrong? I have a fairly new Dimension 3000. I just added a second hard drive as a slave on the primary and it is showing PIO. My CD-Rom is also a slave on the secondary and will not change out of PIO. Any help would be great. Thanks.

Not just CD/DVD but hard disks too. At last my machine doesn’t hiccup and pause every time the HDD light comes on, it’s back on DMA rather than PIO for the Primary IDE Channel. I was close to replacing the machine but for this! Windows XP, VIA chipset with RAID.

Had a problem with my HDD in Windows 2000…
Your trick did it thing.
Big thanks, man.

None of this worked for me but changing the ide cable did ! The old cable had tight bends and kinks from a poorly refitted hard drive. ( not by me ! ) Gone from sometimes mode 2 to mode 5
I have a 40 gb hd master and a 120 gb hd slave.
DVD/CD was ok

I’m using a presario 2000 with xpsp2. My primary drive won’t go into dma. I tried the regedit and when I rebooted the computer hung at the blue windows xp screen. Had to reformat and start over.

After reformat, the drive was in DMA for about 3 days and then slipped back into pio.

Before I try the regedit thing again (maybe I screwed it up somehow) did anyone else experience a failure to boot into windows properly afterwards but me?

Question 2 - One suggestion to regain dma mode is to uninstall the driver for the primary ide drive and let windows reinstall it when it boots up. My question is - will the drive still work properly during the boot process until windows re-installs the driver? I’ve done this on secondary devices but never primary - I don’t want to do something stupid and have to reformat again!

Thanks so much for any help on this great website that I recently discovered (compaq support actually told me about it!)

Ted

keep getting drive time out errors, not block errors. any idea what this actually means?

Great post! Worked 4 me 2 on XP.

Remember this trick: Try switching the jumpers on your disk drives. My computer has a dvd recorder and a separate dvd/cd player. Just change the jumpers on them. Make the other one the master and the remaining device a slave. This apparently forces XP (and NT) to reassign the DMA/PIO modes. It worked for me without changing the registry.

Couldn’t get this working on a Dell Optiplex GX270. After checking the BIOS I found the drive was selected as ‘OFF’, though XP could still use it. Turned it on and UDMA5 access is enabled.
BTW can’t use Intel Application Accelerator on this PCs chipset (865GV) - it’s not supported.

and another point:
I did all the above to fix my primary drive - good stuff (don’t later do the rough fix of deleting the IDE entries in Device manager as it puts back the DataCheckSumId you carefully removed with regedit)

Now the tip:
I have a second internal hard drive - I originally bought it to put in an external usb box but it ran like a sick dog so one day I just put it inside the pc

instant improvement but the slave drive shows as PIO mode, while the master drive shows Udma6

Much fiddling with jumpers, resetting all the above etc etc - PIO mode still

Then light goes on in head: the damn BIOS had Primary Slave set to Off - so check that DMA is enabled at BIOS level on secondary drives - bliss

For dell computers try clearing the nvram. most dell computers has a one page bios. to enter the bios tap “f2” when you see the dell logo. once in the bios turn all the light of your keyboard on…”numlock, caps, scroll”…Press ALT+F, ALT+E, then ALT+B…this will restart your system and perform an automatic ide configuration.

This page is a great find - but did not resolve the issue for my WD 160Gb though.

I only decided to check my drive after a co-worker asked me how to speed up his machine - I told him to check the dma mode - his was in PIO and the simple toggle to PIO then to DMA brought his drive to the right mode. This did not work for my drive. I then deleted MasterIDCheckSum(and slave) and rebooted. This did not work. Changed the other keys mentioned in this article(and links) rebooted - not working. Switched to Standard Dual Channel IDE driver from M$, then reloaded my ALI IDE Driver and then changed back to the ALI IDE Driver - still not working. Download WD WinDLG program to test drive and all tests Pass. Call WD Tech support. They suggested double jumpering the drive and set bios to auto with LBA. The bios recognized as a 32Gb in auto mode, still having problem. Previously was using CHS 1023/16/63 with LBA, bios picked up as 528Mb and have DDO installed - Dynamic Drive Overlay to translate the full size to XP) WD Support said long term solution was to use a controller card ide instead of BIOS IDE, but sent me advanced WD support to see about getting drive back into DMA before getting controller card to ensure no problems with drive itself. When talking with advanced WD support (condasending A$$wipe) as soon as I mentioned XP this guy assumed I know nothing about a computer.

Long story short, my drive was in DMA until Feb 6th(I just noticed problem last week) the event log has 7 alerts with timeouts after every reboot starting the 6th and until discovering my problem the reboots were just a few. Now when I reboot the machine pauses and when I look in eventlog there are 7 timeout alerts. Hopefully a controller card will resolve my problem.

Otherwise the info posted here should work for 95% of the people experiencing this problem. It did for another HDD and my CDRW.

Hi Solstice you just took the words right out of my mouth! I can relate almost exactly to what you are and have gone through with you PC I like you have tried all of the above and God knows what else I have Windows XP pro and have contacted Microsoft Support and have not really had a resolution to Resetting DMA Back to Ultra Mode5 in Current Transfer Mode Device:0 which was the settings the Primary Channel was in about 3 weeks ago! go figure anyhow what exactly does a Controller Card do, I would like to look into a Controller Card if that resolves this DMA reseting issue.I have uninstalled Primary Channel and Secondary Channel was able to reset Secondary Channel back to Ultra Mode2 so that is good now it’s the Primary Channel that is stuck in Current Transfer Mode PIO ,by default I cannot uninstall IDE/ATA/ATAPI controller as was suggested in DVDD forums so I uninstall Primary and Secondary Channels it’s worked before just not anymore
Vamps_2

I deleted the Primary IDE channel in hopes of on reboot on would be able to select DMA and speed up burning on my I/O magic burner. However when I deleted the primary IDE channel i believe it controlled the os which is on my hard drive and now when trying to reboot I just get the dell logo and it just loops over and over back to the dell logo. I cannot even boot up the xp cd. My hard drives (2) are on cable select I will try to change one to master and one to slave to see what happens but in the mean time I would like any suggestions for getting my system to boot up properly.

Hi all well I downloaded and ran the setup.exe file tuneupXP 1.5 from www.majorgeeks.com Webpage I then followed the guidelines from can find Getting Back To DMA Mode then I went into Device Manager and Under IDE/ATA/ATAPI CONTROLLER : primary channel I went into advanced settings and in the TRANSFER MODE :DMA if available ……. I changed it to PIO MODE if availabe I did the same procedure in the SECONDARY CHANNEL …… I then scanned for Hardware changes in (Device Manager) ……………So I recreated the same procedure but this time in the Advanced Setting/Transfer Mode it read : PIO MODE if available the same was for the SECONDARY CHANNEL Transfer Mode: PIO MODE if available, I then changed the Mode back to DMA if available in Transer Mode in both Channels and scanned for Hardware changes in Device Manager. And just like magic there it was

PRIMARY CHANNEL
Device 0: automatic
Transfer Mode : DMA if available
Current Transer Mode: ULTRA DMA5

SECONDAY CHANNEL
Device 1: automatic
Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode : ULTRA DMA2

One thing I did learn is to not uninstall the Sis PCI IDE Controller (at least not in my Computer) since it caused malfuntion and Windows started to Shutdown and restart on it’s own Spontaneously, something to do with the miniport driver anyhow I did have to reinstall a fresh Copy of Windows XP sadfully but not regretfully so now I have begun a much more knowledgeable and Enlightend Journey in the World of DMA Trouble Shooting .

P.S Google Search has some really good
resources also

sincerely vamps_2

The Dell advice that Gabby gave was bang on. Remember…just because Windows recongnises your drives doesnt mean your bios does.

In the Dell Setup hitwith CAPS,NUM and SCROLL lit):
Alt-F
Alt-E
Alt-B

It will then do the automiatic IDE configuration and presto!!

http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~leeey/a7a266/ has instructions for people who are having PIO performance issues with A7A266-(E) motherboards.

Kicka__s! What a fix! Thanks!

Rather than screwing around with the registry, I decided to follow Roodypoohs’s tip. What a lifesaver!

I purchased a Maxtor 300 GB HD with 16 MB cache two months ago for a major video-editing project and to my amazement it performed like a dog (I am also using a WD 250 GB and a Maxtor 120 GB HD for this same v/e project).

I tried everything I could think of w/o success. In desperation I came to this board and realized there were others like me with similar issues. I get a little edgy when it comes to reg hacks, so I took a more conservative course and followed Roodypooh’s advice. I can’t thank Roodypooh enough.

Best of luck to others in a similar fix!

Gman

none of these tips worked my hard drive stays in PIO mode any other suggestions

ECS K7SOM+ mobo
AMD Athlon XP 2200+
Hitachi Deskstar 40Gb WD 120GB Maxtor 30GB Windows XP SP2

the 120 and 30gb hard drives are working in UDMA mode 5 the hitachi one wont ive tried every suggestion from uninstalling the channel to editing the registry even removing the atapi.sys driver from XP SP2 and changing it with the one from SP1a but it still wont work in the event viewer i got alot of error for atapi and 6 warnings saying that my hardware might have old or out-of-date firmware any one else had the same problems

Your ROCK man, this is very usefull information, thanks and god bless you

nethawk, and anyone who can’t enable DMA mode on your hard disk controller, do the following:

To enable DMA mode using the Device Manager

1. Open Device Manager.

2. Double-click IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers to display the list of controllers and channels.

3. Right-click the icon for the channel to which the device is connected, select Properties, and then click the Advanced Settings tab.

4. In the Current Transfer Mode drop-down box, select DMA if Available if the current setting is “PIO Only.”
If the drop-down box already shows “DMA if Available” but the current transfer mode is PIO, then the user must toggle the settings. That is:

• Change the selection from “DMA if available” to PIO only, and click OK.

• Then repeat the steps above to change the selection to DMA if Available.

I got this from Microsoft website. I also couldn’t enable DMA on my hard disk controller after upgrading from WinME to WinXP SP2, but that DID work.

THANK YOU STARK

that one really works (although seems pointless at first)… I have had this problem for awhile with my UDMA activated hard drive always showing up in PIO mode, yet doing what Stark suggested sorted out my pc when all of the other suggestions in here did’nt achieve anything.

What I did was to change IDE0 (hard drive) and IDE1 (CD) back to PIO/NONE (no auto detection)… and hit accept and close that window. Then open IDE0 properties again and lo and behold the DMA WHEN AVAILABLE option was visible in the small drop down menu.

I selected this and then accepted and closed the properties window once more. Then I reopened the IDE0 properties again and there it was… “UDMA4”. Rebooted, checked again and yep… still in UDMA4 mode.

Next I went to the IDE1 and reset auto detection but left the CD in PIO mode (just in case it sent me back to square one). I dont mind having the cd in PIO but running my hard in PIO was just plain sukky.

Many big thanks to STARK, the easiest and best answer so far on this DMA/PIO problem. (I just wish Starks answer was at the top of this forum so that I would have tried his suggestion first instead of the more risky reg hacking reg and deleting hard drive controllers).

Hi all,

I have tried all the methods, but no luck. It doesn’t work. I have even tried the DMACHK utility and it shows Enabled when I reopen it after the restart, but it still says “DMA not in use” as it is also shown in the Advanced Settings [PIO Mode].

My system is:
AMD Athlon 2500+
512 mb ram
128 GeForce FX5600
120 gb Seagate hard drive

The problem is in my hard drive. I have already removed the dvd burner. Don’t know what else to do. Now downloading SP2, if that might help.

If anyone can help, I would be grateful forever.

Thanks,
EyesWideShut

I have a situation were the DVD will not play nor can the PC ‘see’ a photo cd produced by a photo shop but the cd burner will ‘see’ data and also burn new data onto cd-rw/cd-r. This information on DMA - will it solve my situation?
The IDE is in PIO mode otherwise I do not see any problems with operations with applications or email.

Hi, thanks a lot. it worked for me. my drive is samsung and it worked as u said. good work. thanks buddies.

I had this nasty DMA problem on my IBM Thinkpad T41. It came out when I tried to test a freshly-burned DVD by copying its contents to the hard disk. It was so frigging slow and the machine got so unresponsive that it drove me crazy.
I found nothing helpful neither on IBM nor Microsoft sites. Then I came to this page and the solution described here solved my problem indeed!

Thanks a lot guys!

Wow! I have suffered for months with a butt-slow Stinkpad T30 and it’s now back to the way it should be with a ONE-MINUTE FIX! You folks are the greatest!
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

Curt Hayes

THANKS. It worked. I can now see a DVD on my Inspiron 9300 without becoming sea sick!!!

I hope this is not off topic but I have a problem with a LG GDR-8163B dvd-rom. The thing is that it cannot copy the cd(or dvd) content while in dma mode so I had to force it to use PIO mode as described earlier on this page. When in dma mode it reads the cd TOC because I can see the files but I cannot copy them but in pio mode works perfectly only that it keeps my cpu (AMD Sempron 2200+) at 100% (this is normal in pio mode). This is why I want to knopw if there is something I can do to make it work in dma mode. I’ve also checked the producer’s site for a firmware upgrade but didn’t find one.
Than you,
Dan

Thanks a lot! Everything works now.

After hours of search and trials I found your message and now it works!

Thanks a lot!!!

Luca

After several attempts i managed to turn on DMA on both CD an HDD.
It worked after deleting:
MasterIdDataChecksum
SlaveIdDataChecksum
And setting TimingModeAllowed to 0xffffffff as described by GTP.
Deleting only MasterId… and SlaveId… did work only for cd…
Thanks!

I have also had distinct and frrustrating time getting both the primary IDE (2 HDDs) and secondary (2 DVD writers) to run in DMA mode. All 4 would only run in PIO mode. I tried the registry, dmacheck and remove/redetect secondary IDE channel methods, and nothing worked.

What *DID* work was updating the driver from ATA to Standard Dual IDE controller. Once this was done, all 4 drives came up showing as running in DMA mode. What a relief that was.

The other tip I’ve seen is to check for “Allow PCI Bus Masters = Enabled” in the BIOS.

Ok I can get DMA to work OK,,,,,,,,, but my master & Slave are both rated to work at DMA 5,,,,,,,,but the little suckers will only run at DMA 2 for the master and DMA 1 for the Slave.
This is on a XP pro system with a VIA Apollo chipset.Any suggestions on how to get the two do-hickies to run at DMA 5?

I have almost the same problem using a DELL Optiplex 170L where a new DVDR DUAL GO W1616B refuse to go DMA and it cause me problem in burning data backups.

I did almost everything I could like rregistry tricks deleting IDE channels ect..but no way of having this lat set on DMA, the DVDR is set as slave on IDE1 while on master I have a CDR which is actually set on DMA 2, the cable doesn’t look to be an 80 pin one more like a ordinary IDE cable, would that be the problem? if so why is the CDR ( which is definitely older than the device I’m trying to make work) working with DMA and the DVDR not?

Will swapping the DVDR on Master make any difference? Or should I try to check for a 80pin cable? The bios setting for the IDE channel got DMA on ,but the DELL bios does suck a bit not leaving me much changes I can operate

Wonder if the DELL trick suggested by gabby will work for me. …desperate : (

Well, I tried exhaustively the STARK / Microsoft trick and it DIDN´T work for me. I even
tried to change it to PIO, reboot, then change it do “DMA if available” and reboot and I was not able to make it work at all!

Then I’ve tried the Regedit trick and it worked GREAT!!!!! Now my Maxtor Diamond Plus 9 6Y120L0 is working on UDMA6 mode!

Thanks !!!

Another useful site from MS -
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=817472

I tried everything that was posted in this log. The only thing that finally worked for me was to install ide controller that was not listed in the chipset’s update. I am running
Pentium 3
Xp Pro , sp2
PCChips, M756mrt
SIS 630.
Do a search on side213.exe for the only drivers that have worked. I was also able to shave 13 seconds off my boot time, and have DMA mode 2 on all 4 drives (at least it’s better than PIO)

CORRECTION
The above file should be sis202 to enable SIS Mini PCI IDE (Ultra DMA. It is specific for xp and Win 2000 with chipsets ATA 133

Thanks to the post by fyc about the Intel Application Accelerator!! Nothing else worked for me excep for this. I just dowloaded it and installed it from intel without the modifications suggested by fyc and it worked great. Using the other suggested fixes I was able to get DMA working on my master drive but nothing else would get my slave drive into DMA mode except for the Intel drivers. Spent all day on this darn thing. Thanks to all !!!

My solution was to open device manager, uninstall the primary ide channel, which was only running pio, then restart. The computer found and reinstalled the ide channel, I restarted again and holy macaroni it works. Hope this helps somebody. Now if I could just get ‘em from dma mode 2 to mode 5……..

Thank you Sniptools and everyones comments. my wifee’s computer can read dvds again after countless times trying to toggle back and forth from PIO mode. I nearly gave up, so glad I found your wisdom. Thanks again.

Hi all,

Sometimes can help the following procedure:

Set the following registry key
HKLM\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP\Scsi\Scsi Port N\DMAEnabled

to
1 - enable master DMA
2 - enable slave DMA
3 - enable master/slave DMA

To choose the proper “Scsi Port N” (N can be 0,1,2, …) take look inside

HKLM\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP\Scsi\Scsi Port N\Target Id 0\Logical Unit Id 0\Identifier

If Identifer contains the name of your CD than you find the correct N.

Thi procedure helped me to RETURN back the DMA mode on my DVD/CD RW combo drive.

Bye!

Have a Dell XPS3 with 2SATA hard drives, and two DVD-rw on primary ide. One day the slave sata drive, and the master dvd both would only work in pio. The reg change fixed my dvd, but can’t for the life of me find where the entries are for the sata drives. The Bios fix didn’t do anything. Do I uninstall the Intel 82801FB/FBM Ultra Ata Controller, or the Intel 82801FR SATA AHCA controller? Will my puter reboot without these?
Thanks

Thanks a lot. It worked for me. My dvd writer was writing at 1x and using all the pc resources. I have the impression that if the XP finds errors while reading (writing) dvds, it will turn pio mode back again. Microsoft should fix that. I don’t know anybody who wants to use pio mode anymore.

Man! Thank you very much. I would’ve never figured out what to do with this stuff. It turned out to be so simple. Simple if you know what you’re doing, that is. Thanks again.
Alex Suvik

My primary IDE HDD was put in PIO mode by Windows XP - I tried the trick of changing the setting to PIO and then going back to DMA if available but it did not work. The thing that worked for me was to Uninstall the driver and reboot. On the first reboot windows will detect the “new” hardware and after installing the driver will ask you to reboot again. After the second reboot the HDD was correctly put in Ultra DMA Mode 5

I have a Dell Optiplex GX1p, with Windows XP professional with SP2. I tried to upgrade my hard drive to a 250 GB Hitachi Deskstar. The Setup does not even recognize the drive using “Auto” detect, and I can’t manually set the drive to specs. Any suggestions?
Thanks

Reg edit worked! Yippie!
Hours of hard drive testing.. showed nothing…. I have a samsung HD and a dell 1100 desktop. Tryed dell bios. no effect. tryed swithing back and forth no effect. My big ? now is will it hold?

The reason according to windows log is 3 or more errors in HD cause DMA lock out.

Yet drive shows good?! Very good now DMA %5 !

But will it hold. You know dell is now mounting drives vertical!
stright up in air! must have some effect.

Wow!! Hyc’s comment regarding Intel chipsets was the best solution to my performance problems. Kick out that crappy default driver shipped with Windows and put in the Intel’s updated driver and my system is humming now (and the Centrino trick for laptops works!). Thanks so much for this great solution. Others might want to try it as it obviates the need for even dealing with the Registry edits or MS funny non-intuitive toggle junk.

Thanks a lot!! With the post of Stank i solve it!!.
But the only problem is that i can’t set the hard drive to DMA MODE 5.
Anybody knows how set the drive to dma mode 5?.

Familiair problem that is mentioned here. I bought a new Maxtor 250GB HDD and it would only work in PIO-modus. Reinstalling XP didn’t work. I flashed my BIOS but that didn’t make a differende either. I tried every possible option that was mentioned here,but nothing worked. Further search on the Internet provided me a page that DID help me.

I have an ASUS A7A266 MB and this MB seems to have a problem with large HDD’s. So, I wasn’t alone, thank God! :D This is the URL to that webpage:

http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~leeey/a7a266/

I installed the updated driver and followed the instructions in the README.TXT file. And, holy crap…It WORKS!!! Finally, after days of going crazy and almost throwing my PC out of the window, my HDD’s are working fine now.

Notice: If you see these two IDE controllers become “SCSI/RAID Host Controller” in Windows “Device Manager”, this is normal, don’t worry. Since “ALi Ultra IDE Driver” is used to mimic IDE devices as SCSI devices. Therefore you will find your IDE devices becoming SCSI devices in “Device Manager”.

Well, if you have the same MB, please visit the site I mentioned if all the above doesn’t work. Good luck with it!

Gr. Jacqueline from The Netherlands.

All the above didn’t work for me…But what DID work, was installing another driver for my MB. I have an ASUS A7A266 MB and it seems to be a familiair problem that this MB has problems with detecting large HDD’s

My 250GB Maxtor HDD stayed in PIO-modus, no matter what I tried. I flashed the BIOS, reinstalled XP, tried all of the above but nothing worked.

After surfing around on the Internet I found a site that helped me out. It seems I cannot post the link here because that is seen als spam Well, what I did was download: ALi’s UltraIDE driver, version 4.0.0.8.

I followed the directions in the README.TXT file…I was told to notice: If you see these two IDE controllers become “SCSI/RAID Host Controller” in Windows “Device Manager”, this is normal, don’t worry. Since “ALi Ultra IDE Driver” is used to mimic IDE devices as SCSI devices. Therefore you will find your IDE devices becoming SCSI devices in “Device Manager”

And, holy crap…This WORKED!!! Finally, after days of going crazy, both my HDD’s are working fine now and at normal speed.

So, if you have a MB using an ALiMagik 1 chipset, such as the Asus A7A266, or Asus A7A266-E and you have problems with a large HDD…install the driver I mentioned. I hope it will work for you as well.

Good Luck!

Greetings from Jacqueline from The Netherlands.

This thread saved my life - thanks guys.

I’ve got an Advent T9303, Intel 82801 etc. chipset, 2 x Seagate ST3200822AS drives (SATA), WinXP Home SP2. Every so often, one or other would fall back to PIO mode, and the only fix I’d found until I discovered this site was to re-install XP (and then everything else…).

FWIW, none of the SCSI DMAEnabled, the IDE transfer mode or the uninstall driver tricks worked, but the original trick of deleting the checksums did. A small note, they weren’t in ../CurrentControlSet/.. but in ../ControlSet001/.. , ..002, etc. (in case anybody’s lost them!).

Interestingly, after the last re-install, I had no problem for over a month (a record for this heap-of-trouble PC). Then I remembered I hadn’t done a Windows update (and automatic update was off), so off I went to get the updates (you can see it coming, can’t you!). Within a couple of days - severe crash, blue screens all round, PIO mode when I eventually got it to reboot. So, it would appear the problem is with one of the 30+ updates - any ideas?

Thanks again to all contributors.

It really works ! Thak you !
I have a 160GB Seagate Barracuda. I suspected my computer doesnt want to cooperate with it because of 127GB limit problem…
You saved my disk from throwing it away

Here’s some specfics on clearing the nvram (for Dell Users)

Clear the NVRAM on Dell™ Dimension™ 1100, B110, 2200, 2400, 3000, 4300, 4500s, 4600, 4600c, 4600i, 8100, 8200, 8300, 8300n, XPS, XPS Gen2, XPS Gen 3

To clear the NVRAM, perform the following steps:
Restart your computer.
At the first text on the screen or at the Dell logo, press the key every three seconds until the message Entering Setup appears.
The System Setup screen appears.
Press the key, the key, and the key to light up all three lights on the keyboard.
Press the and keys at the same time.
The system will emit a beep tone to indicate that NVRAM has been cleared.
Press the key, and then press the key to save the changes and reboot the system.
Proceed with the installation or troubleshooting that you were attempting.


You can find all the specifics for each system at Dell support.. I’d post the link but apparently that’s a “nono”. If you do a google search with the phrase ” How Do I Clear NVRAM on my Dell Dimension System?” it should pop right up with a link. Probably will for their other models too.

Gabby thanks for pointing me in that direction. I don’t know if it will work but if it does, it’s a MUCH easier fix than messing with registry edits, modifying Bio’s or hotfixes…I’m leery of even attempting those, given the damage you can do if you mess up. I’m not THAT tech savy.

PIO detected on Samsung MP0402H. I know this needs to be in DMA and I’m not sure how to get it there? I’m afaid to screw up my computer as well.

also, my Primary channel will not change using STARK’s technique, but Secondary channel will…

Geez… i keep forgetting to tell this…

My laptop is a Dell Latitude D610

It’s mainly used for recording and the issue is with the recording interface. A Line 6 Tone Port UX1

My QSI DVD-ROM SDR-081 in my SONY VAIO PCG-FX501 decided that now it only reads DVD’s and no more CDROM’s or AUDIO CD’s. I checked my IDE settings but both channels are in DMA. I unloaded, deconnected, and had Windows XP reinstall to no avail. Anyone any idea/solution?

I’m having the same problem, Henk, after an invasion of my PC, due either to hacking or a trojan. Any suggestions on further advice?

Sorry, should have been more specific about my situation. Turned on my PC one morning and suddenly the Guest account appeared. I tried to shut it off, but could not initially (initially I learned how to). Meanwhile, the Guest account was full of porn in its history folder.

My user account (I share this PC with another person, and we each have password accounts, thank god) was no longer an admin account.

Many problems have resulted from this. I want to reformat the PC and start clean, but I create original video material for my job, and much of it is on my PC only (other stuff is backed up, but unfortunately I wasn’t always that good about that). I want to burn this material to DVD before I reformat.

I can’t. One thing that happened in this invasion is that DMA was turned off. I can’t figure out how to turn it back on. I’ve tried the methods listed here.

Here’s what MyDVD tells me:

MyDVD has detected that DMA is turned off from one or more of the recording devices attached to the system. In order to successfully write to the device, DMA should be turned on, refer to your operating system manual or use Windows Help for instructions on how to do this.”

I looked at my advanced settings per this thread and here’s what I got:

Device 0
Device type: Auto Detection (this is greyed)
Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA Mode 2

Device 1
Device type: Auto Detection
Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Not applicable

I’m not a PC person so I don’t really even know how to begin solving this problem. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Even simpler way to solve the PIO/DMA problem. I have found 9 out of 10 times works — just Uninstall whichever IDE channel is causing the problem (usually the secondary) with a right-click in Device Manager — then reboot.
The DMA will be re-installed correctly, and all will be well. Not usually any need to fiddle w registry.
this is a well known ‘feature’ of XP actually. as soon as you have a certain amount of read errors (and this amount is low, so it might be reached by just trying to rip one scratched DVD) XP automatically switches the drive back to PIO mode and keeps it there…

Hi

I am also having problems enabling “DMA if Available” I
have tried everything suggested above, but even though the
settings are for DMA if available…PIO is still showing.

I have tried the following so far:

1. Made sure “DMA if available is displayed

2. Tried switching to “PIO Mode” and then changing back.

3. Finally I deleted the following from my registry;

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\000x

MasterIdDataChecksum
SlaveIdDataChecksum

When I close down and re-boot, I then check my registry
again and they are BACK. For some reason they are getting re-installed on start Up?

Any suggestions would be greatfully appreciated

Bill

Hi Shashank

Thanks for your help. I tried what you suggested but on
re-boot both of the following files are getting
re-installed.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\000x

MasterIdDataChecksum
SlaveIdDataChecksum

In my device manager under: IDE/ATA/Atari Controllers is
ALSO the following:

Intel(R) 82801DB Ultra ATA Controller

Would this have anything to do with me not being able to
delete the above two entries?

Thanks Bill

hello, my problem is that i finally got my secondary ide to switch from PIO to DMA.
however, it is running in multi-word DMA mode 2 instead of ULTRA DMA 5.
ultra dma mode 5 is what it originally ran at. i tried all the regedit and uninstall driver procedures.

thanks,

captainj@cfl.rr.com

Wow, this forum literally saved my computer from the junk heap. Bought a new second drive for all my data. Spent 2 weeks trying to get it to format and another 3 weeks trying to get both drives out of PIO mode and into DMA mode. Tried everything in this forum. None of the simple stuff worked, but then again, I knew it would never be that simple. Turns out I had to remove an older version of Intel Application Accelerator to get Windows XP to even format my drive. But I found out I had to reinstall a newer verson of IAA to get Windows to read the drives at DMA 5. Very strange. But someone mentioned it on this page so I tried it and viola! Now I can get back to my life. Although those 5 weeks of my life i will never get back….

Tried everything from this page - nothing helped with this PIO Mode issue.

What worked out in my case was switching onboard IDE controller from Enhanced to Compatibility IDE mode (BIOS setting).

If it helps someone, motherboard is ASUS P5AD2-E (Intel 925XE chipset) with AMI BIOS, Pioneer 111d rw drive, Windows XP SP2. Now it’s 5 minutes to burn 4.7 Gb disc, before that it took 40+ minutes.

hi.

my dma problem with my harddisk is gone, using the solution regkey deleting.

thank you very much.

sorry for my terrible english

dear all,

i’ve tried many things suggested here (deleting of all three MasterIdDataChecksum found in regedit, uninstall the IDE primary where my dvd was in, make sure the ‘DMA if available’ was set.), but still, failed and seeing PIO

my motherboard is gigabyte 965p DS4 with pioneer DVR-111. window XP service pack 2. The reading/writing speed is 1x, so i can’t even watch a DVD on it!

i’m using two SATA harddisks. In BIOS, i set the SATA mode to AHCI, and onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode to AHCI. I was wondering, is this AHCI that cause the conflicts? If so, if I change it to IDE, will that kill all data in my harddisk right now?

Please help!

Thanks!!

Kai

Thanks for all reccommendations, but my problem was located on other place.
Win2000 KTAPRO -> JetWay 880VIA MB
The DVDROM and DVDRW was set to PIO by default.
DVDROM was able to change to DMA with control panel….. setting, but DWDRW LiteOn dissappeared from Win system after DMA change. All already mentioned actions in forum didn’t help.
The last chance - follow old reccommendation: If all trying is witout success - read manuals carefuly and for me was there!
There was written : set NONE instead of AUTO for CD/DVD in IDE- BIOS settig.

This short sentence brings me happy today evenning WORKS!!!!
How can be solution simple!
Nice evenning for all
ceko

Thank you everybody at sniptools…I finally cleared the DMA trouble after weeks of searching the web…THANK YOU

Thank you very much, It works & only takes a couple of minutes, well done to you.

when i open the nero for burning the cd .its showing error message like that “dma is not activated .you have to activate your all drives dma then try.please give the solutons

Just to clarify, using older 40 way IDE cables will limit you to DMA mode 1 or 2, to get faster speeds you definately need 80 way cables

I didn’t read all the posts so sorry if I’m repeating someone, but it seemed likely some of you had this problem

Hi…
When I open the primary IDE primary challel, the device type says auto detection, the transfer mode is already set to dma if available and the current transfer mode is set to dma mode 5 and i am able t i am unalbe to change device 1. the devict type is set to auto, transfer is set to dma if available, but the current transfer mode says “not applicable”.
Now in the secondary, device 0 is set to dma if available but the current transfer mode is pio mode. For Device 1, it says the same as above’s device 1.
If anyone can help I’d greatly appreciate since I have no clue as to what I am doing.
Thanks in advance

OMG! I LOVE YOU!

This just made 6 hours of debugging until 1am completely and totally worth while! My system is 100x faster now, and finally back to what it was like before!

For anyone else looking for help, for me, my system slowed down after a loose SATA cable caused my drive to flip into PIO, and xp wouldn’t let me switch it back!!!

Best fix ever!!! You just saved me having to re-install xp!