SATA HDD's and DMA Setting Question?

[usaf64]

First let me say I have two "Primary IDE Channel's on my Dell Computer. There are two SATA Cable connected HDD's on one Channel and the Second IDE Channel, has "Cable Select" (I think), DVD ROM/CD Burner, and a NEC ND-3500AG DVD Burner.

I've just started backing up some of my comercial DVD's using Nero, DVD Decriptor and DVD Shrink and used my DVD Rom (to rip) and ND-3500A DVD to Write. All is working fine; however, I've seen questions about slower burning speeds and checked if I had "DMA Enabled" as suggested in other posts.

Checked my Device Manager Settings for both my Primary IDE Channels. My problem is that I can't determine which IDE Channel are my hard disk drives and which Channel is my DVD/Rom and DVD Burner.

On one Channel (all are auto detection in Win XP SP2), Advanced settings, it reads:

Device O Transfer Mode: DMA if Available; Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA Mode 5.
Device 1 (same spec's as Device 0)

On the second Primary IDE Channel, Advanced Settings, it reads:


Device 0 Transfer Mode: DMA if Available; Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA mode 2.
Device 1 Transfer Mode: DMA if Available; Cuttent Transfer Mode: PIO Mode


How do I determine which channel have my HDD's and which are my DVD's?

I do know that Location 1 is my NEC ND-3500a and Location 0 is my DVD ROM/CD Burner. Since I believe all are cable select (not 100% sure), all are not set up as Master/Slave.

Do I have it right or is the Primary Channel that uses DMA Mode 2 and PIO the one containing my DVD hardware.

Here is why I ask. Although I've only backued up about 10 DVD's using the above software, it generally takes me close to two hours to Rip, Analyse, Encode and burn a DVD. To backup a backup, it took me slightly under 1 hour.

Boy these technical questions are kinda tough to explain. Can any of you Guru's address this DMA/PIO Time to backup questions please?

[redwudz]

The first channel listed would definitely be a HD, because of the DMA 5. DMA 2 is typical of a DVD or CD ROM or burner.

Also if you use Nero, try the Nero Info Tool. It will have a better listing of the drives, their position and whether they are DMA or PIO. You can also get Info tool from the Nero site.

[Richard_G]

The default is to install hard drives to the Primary IDE and a hard drive,if set up correctly, will usually show as running in DMA mode 5. So it looks as though your hard drives are on the Primary where they should be. Optical drives are usually installed on the secondary channel and usually run in DMA mode 2. Your very slow backup performance is down to one of the drives running in PIO mode. Using Shrink, it takes me around 15 - 20 minutes to rip, re-author to main movie only and burn (at 8x).

I suggest you leave you hard drives alone as they appear to be working correctly, but change the links on your optical drives to Master and Slave instead of Cable Select. Make your burner the Master (Device 0) and your ROM drive the slave (Device 1). You should then find that both are running in DMA mode 2.

[usaf64]

Thanks all. I did as suggested and brough up the Nero Info Tool and it indicated that my NEC ND-3500AG was in "PIO" mode--and was identified as the "slave" unit.

I did peek in my BIOS and it too, indicated the NEC as the slave. Since I didn't see any way in the BIOS to change the Master/Slave configuration, can I do this to swap:

Remove the DVD ROM (device 0, Master) and the NEC (Device 1, Slave) from the computer box and swap places inside the box? For example. now the NEC would be screwed in where the previous DVD/Rom was located. This way the ribbon connector that previously connected to the DVD/ROM (device 0), would now be connected to the NEC ND-3500AG?

Since my Dell Computer came with the DVD/ROM installed (device 0) and, according to the CPU's Owner Manual, which indicated that this ROM is connected as Cable Select, and if you install a second DVD, (which I did, the NEC), you must also set it as Cable Select.

It also stated that Cable Select would determine which is Master and which is Slave. Unfortunately, for me, it set the ROM as Master and the NEC as slave. That is probably why my burn times are longer.

I don't know if the Dell OEM ROM has the "pins" that you would change to select Master, Cable Select, Slave. Thats why I am asking about just physically removing and changing places and ribbon connections for both units. Thanks again all. You learn something new each time you visit these forums.

[Richard_G]

Physically swapping the drives MAY change them but it may also have no effect. If you look on the back of both drives, you'll see three sets of two pins and a link connecting two of them. the pairs of pins will be marked MA (Master), SL (Slave) and CS (Cable Select). Set your burner to Master and the DVD-ROM drive to Slave. The Dell OEM drive won't have been made by Dell (nothing else in their boxes is made by them) and will just be a generic drive from another manufacturer and almost certainly will have the pins to select. I know that the drives fitted in Dell laptops are just generic Matsushita ones as fitted in numerous other makes of laptop.

[redwudz]

Cable Select means just what it says. Whether a drive is seen as master or slave is determined by where it is plugged into the cable. On most 80 conductor cables, the first socket is grey and is slave and the second is black and is master and the motherboard socket is blue, if I remember correctly. If you leave your drives set as CS, just change their positions on the cable.

However, I prefer setting the jumpers on the drives to master or slave.

[Richard_G]

As redwudz says, master or slave SHOULD be detected by where it is on the cable but I've found it doesn't always work. If both drives are to the same spec (UDMA 2 or UDMA 4), it usually will, but not if they are mixed. It also only works sometimes if 40 way IDE cables are used (which is often the case with optical drives).

For this reason I always set the jumpers so I know how it will be configured.