Getting back to DMA mode in Windows XP

Written by Shanx November 15th, 2003

Getting back to DMA mode in Windows XP

Continue reading →
Close

CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives can revert to using PIO mode, despite being set to use “DMA if Available.” Here’s how to make Windows XP redetect the DMA capabilities of the drives.

CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives can revert to using PIO mode, despite being set to use “DMA if Available.” Here’s how to make Windows XP redetect the DMA capabilities of the drives.

This behaviour occurs with the following conditions:

  • Windows XP is the operating system
  • A CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, which is known to support DMA mode now works only in PIO mode.
  • The drive controller is set to use “DMA if available” but reports to be only in PIO mode.

Following is the mechanism that has worked for me, please try it at your own risk, it involves hacking the registry:

  1. Open RegEdit
  2. Find the following KEY:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\
    Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\000x
  3. The last four digits will be 0000, 0001, 0002, 0003, and so on.
  4. Under each key, delete all occurences of the following values:
    MasterIdDataChecksum
    SlaveIdDataChecksum
  5. Reboot the computer. Windows will now redetect DMA settings.

Trala! If that doesn’t do it, please check the very useful comment below by a user named STARK.

Posted in Miscellaneous

173 Comments

Tagged with

173 Comments

  1. Rob J says:

    STARK you are a genius, simple but effective advice!

  2. Bob says:

    I have a similar problem with the harddisks.
    HD 0 (master) comes always in PIO mode but the HD 1 is OK in UDMA-5 mode.
    Would the registry-trick work? (Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo-P,2x 160GB HD,XP Home)

  3. Bob says:

    The Problem is solved. I changed the registry an I could not beleive what happened. For 1 year I had the problems, could not listen to radio on my PC without disturbing noise from f.e. virusscanner, could not make good videorecordings. Now the problem seems to be history.
    Thanks!

  4. aonghas says:

    Hey thanks for the tip. I had trouble trying to enable DMA for my DVD writer but it’s all good now. Cheers.

  5. kickenchicken360 says:

    ok soo.. i tried all of these tricks to try to set my dvd drive liteon shw 160p6s it was ultra dma mode 4 back in july in 06, now its ultra dma mode 2.. i tried switching the ide cable with my hard drive which WAS ultra dma mode 5.. because of my stupid stunt my hdd now is also ultra dma mode 2.. i tried the reg hack where you delete the things. or where the reg add dword thing.. that says enalge ultra dma66 and that didnt work. i downloaded the thing where it enables dma on the channels.. didnt work. how can i fix this??? its causing my computer to run slower than normal. my drive now rips and burns slower than usual.. and my hdd access is slower and my computer feels.. bleh sluggish.. help ??
    how can i make both drive ultra dma 5 for the hdd and ultra dma 4 for the dvd drive?

  6. GoldlyCat says:

    PLEASE HELP!

    I am so glad I found this site, it looks VERY HELPFUL, However nothing posted has worked for me.

    First
    I downloaded sonic DVD decoder on my new/not used Dell Dimension 4700 computer which did not have a decoder originally.

    When I try to play a DVD the picture seems a little slow and the audio is VERY choppy.

    I have tried a few things recommended in the above.

    I have tried deleteing the Master IDDATACHECK SUM and the Slave in the Regedit, but in 000 there was only the Master and not the slave, I deleted the Master and slave, in 0001, they were both there, there is no 0002 there. There is no Master or Slave or in 0003 or 0004 when I reboot then check them, what I have deleted comes back.

    I have 2 primary IDE channels, I deleted them and rebooted, it did not change the PIO Mode to DMA.

    I have changed my DMA to PIO, then rebooted, then changed them back to DMA if available, but it still is set to PIO mode in the current transfer mode.

    I have a Dell Dimension 4700
    I have XP Home Edition

    This is what my IDA/ATA ATAPI controllers are set to:

    The first Primary (there are two) is set to:

    Device 0
    Device Type – auto detection (faded)
    Transfer Mode – DMA if available
    Current Transfer Mode – Ultra DMA Mode 5

    Device 1
    Device Type – auto detection (not faded)
    Transfer Mode – DMA If available
    Current Transfer Mode – not applicable

    In my second Primary, it is set to:

    Device 0
    Device Type – auto detection (faded)
    Transfer Mode – DMA if available
    Current Transfer Mode – Ultra DMA Mode 2

    Device 1
    Device Type – auto detection (faded)
    Transfer Mode – DMA If available
    Current Transfer Mode – PIO Mode

    If anyone can help me get my DVD’s to work properly, I would appreciate it soooo much

    GoldyCat

  7. sally says:

    i have a qsi dvd sdr 081 cd rom and it reads dvds but when i put a
    cd in it acts like it want s to start but then says no cd in drive

  8. joao from portugal says:

    hy i found this site and it look very cool.
    I have the same problem that bill does.
    Shashank says that we should go desactivate the System restore feature. Where is that???

    Adeus e muito obrigada (thanks and bye)
    Espero uma resposta urgente (please tell me as fast as posible)
    Sorry for my english, i know it sucks
    joao

  9. zahid says:

    thanks a lot davester
    see ya in heaven dude

  10. Finn says:

    I’ve tried most of the stuff on this page, but my 1st ide channel HDDs stay as DMA2 and 2nd ide channel HDD is PIO (DVD is DMA2 as it’s supposed to be) I’ve tried deleting the SlaveIdDataCheckSum and MasterIdDataCheckSum , all over the registry, but whenever windows searches for plug and play devices, whether I press the button in device manager or reboot, the keys pop right back there. System restore is off.

    Windows XP SP2
    pri mast HDD DMA2
    pri slave HDD DMA2
    sec mast HDD PIO
    sec slave DVD DMA2

    Ideas on how to delete the keys?

  11. washcloud says:

    all of u posting dma mode issues(…well…at least owners of OLD hardware),keep in mind that if something does work for u,theres always the chance of the hardware not supporting it……;)

  12. washcloud says:

    *..if soemething does NOT work,even….lol ;)

  13. Ahmed says:

    It works!!! Finally my anger is over and my laptop DVD Writer is back on track, writing full DVD in 20 minutes, not 70 minutes!! and also the computer is faster doing other tasks while burning the DVD.

    Thanks guys! You are the best.

    Regards,

    Ahmed

  14. Kelvin says:

    Solution:
    I was in PIO and the simple toggle to PIO then to DMA did not work for my drive. I then deleted MasterIDCheckSum(and slave) and rebooted. This did not work.

    Then I saw Post 99 by Simon C-S and I tried

    It WORKS:

    Updating Driver from Ultra ATA to Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller

    1. My Computer -> Properties -> Hardware -> Device Manager
    2. select device Ultra ATA(IDE Controller), chose it’s
    Properties -> Driver

    Note:
    IDE controllers may be listed not only in ‘IDE controllers’
    section, but in ‘SCSI and RAID controllers’ or ‘Other devices’.

    3. Update Driver -> Next
    4. ( ) ….
    (*) Install from a list or specific location (Advanced)
    5. Next
    6. ( ) ….
    (*) Don’t search. I will choose the driver to install
    7. Next
    8. Click on Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller
    9. Next
    10. Finish
    11. Reboot

    Now my 2 harddisks and CD-ROM are in DMA4 and 2 respectively.

    Thanks!

  15. Ahmed says:

    guys I noticed something: the transfer mode is still (multi-word DMA mode 2) and there is no problem but I checked today the regedit and the same key available before in the same location(MasterIdDataChecksum).

    Is this normal or it is a warning that the problem will happen again?

  16. Martin says:

    This worked for me – I tried half a dozen other ideas before finding this one, thanks!

  17. LNA says:

    yeah…

    Man…it does work..thanks a lot..
    Incredible that even after 3 year, this trick still helping people.

    =D

  18. Xmike says:

    I tried changing the registry without any results. So I finally deleted my 6.1 nero and install my old version Nero OEM 3 that came with one of my pervious DVD burners. Burns great now. I think they have CW blocking on the latest versions.

  19. deon says:

    I’m using winxp when i insert my flash drive onto my onboard usb port it gives me blue screen of death evertime. What can i do to fix ?

  20. deonkella says:

    I’m using winxp when i insert my flash drive into my onboard usb port it gives me blue screen of death. What can i do to fix the probem.

  21. jaffamuffin says:

    None of the above software tricks worked for me. I had to swap my 2 hard disks around from primary to secondary controllers and vice versa. Then it worked nicely.

    asrock Vsta quad, VIA chipset

  22. [...] mode maybe, renable DMA. Have a look at this link DMA reverts to PIO | Windows Problem Solver / http://sniptools.com/vault/getting-b…-in-windows-xpto make winxp to redetect the dma capabilities of your drive. Bad cable is one of possible causes [...]

  23. [...] Getting back to DMA mode in Windows XP | Sniptools | Miscellaneous [...]

Miscellaneous

I use the Nokia e61i as my mobile. Instead of my telco’s data plan (which offers me a meagre 1GB per month) I simply prefer to use my home wireless [...]

Continue reading →

View all

Web Tools

If you use Firefox (and if not, what are you waiting for?) you are familiar with useful extensions such as Video Downloader, which allow you to save local copies of [...]

Continue reading →

View all

Databases

This regexp worked for me. SELECT * FROM table WHERE NOT column ~ ( ‘^(‘|| $$[\09\0A\0D\x20-\x7E]|$$|| — ASCII $$[\xC2-\xDF][\x80-\xBF]|$$|| — non-overlong 2-byte $$\xE0[\xA0-\xBF][\x80-\xBF]|$$|| — excluding overlongs $$[\xE1-\xEC\xEE\xEF][\x80-\xBF]{2}|$$|| — straight 3-byte [...]

Continue reading →

View all

Windows

So you’ve been visited by the much dreaded CRC — Cyclical Redundancy Check error, most likely encountered while copying files between hard disks. On Mac OSX, this will usually appear [...]

Continue reading →

View all

Mac OSX

A simple app ought to do it. Download iRinger. It’s a Windows app. If you’re on Mac, you’ll want to use it within a virtual machine, like Parallels or VMWare [...]

Continue reading →

View all

System Maintenance

I use the Nokia e61i as my mobile. Instead of my telco’s data plan (which offers me a meagre 1GB per month) I simply prefer to use my home wireless [...]

Continue reading →

View all

Wordpress

Among many new exciting features, WordPress 2.6 released the ability to store each and every revision of your posts, like an elaborate update history. Now this can be a pretty [...]

Continue reading →

View all

Audio/Video

Panic, the makers of some fantastic software such as Transmit or Panic, also have the most light-weight audio converter for the Mac OSX platform. It’s called Audion: get it here. [...]

Continue reading →

View all

iPhone

A simple app ought to do it. Download iRinger. It’s a Windows app. If you’re on Mac, you’ll want to use it within a virtual machine, like Parallels or VMWare [...]

Continue reading →

View all