DMA Enabled question/help needed!!

[bubernak]

I’ve got intermittent problems backing up DVDs using Shrink and NERO, and been told to make sure my DMA is Enabled for my burner. Here’s my setup…Dell 4600 P4 Windows XP Home, Primary IDE Channel has two hard drives on it and the Secondary IDE channel has a CD-RW and a DVD-RW (rebadged Lite-on 811s). When I went to check my DMA settings on my system, both IDE channels have the exact same setup. The Transfer Mode selection for Device 0 and 1 are both set to “DMA if available”, and both Device 0’s Current Transfer Mode is using “Ultra DMA Mode 2”, however both Device 1’s Current Transfer Mode is using “PIO Mode”?? I don’t understand why, and I can’t seem to change them to Ultra DMS Mode. On both IDE channels, I added the second piece of hardware (an additional 120 GB HD on the primary IDE channel and the DVD-RW onto the secondary IDE channel) myself and set them up as “cable select”. Did I do something wrong, or is there something I need to do to change the Device 1’s to Ultra DMA? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,

Mike

[tag]

Check the settings in your Dell's BIOS. Make sure nothing is set to "OFF" or "N/A" (on drives set to cable select, I believe the correct BIOS setting is "AUTO"). This worked for me when I installed another drive on one of my 4600's.

[budz]

I added the second piece of hardware (an additional 120 GB HD on the primary IDE channel and the DVD-RW onto the secondary IDE channel)myself and set them up as “cable select”.

instead of cable select use master and slave. here's a guide on enabling DMA with XP.

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=7625

[dave_bass5]

I read somewhere that if XP has 5 or more errors on a certain ide channel it reverts to PMO mode for saftey.
When this happens to me i remove the ide channel in Hardware manager, reboot and XP re installs it working in DMA mode.
This ive done a couple of times and it works.
I know this is a different problem but if changing the cable select doesnt work it might be worth giving a go
Dave.