Ok i have had my computer about 6 weeks now this is it

Intel pentium 4 2.0Ghz
80GB IDE
512Mb DDR
16x DVD-ROM (HL-DT-ST dvd rom GDR8160B)
32x10x40 CDRW IDE (Burnproof) (sanyo BP 1600p)
Nvida Geforce4 ti44000
I belive the motherboard to be 645 ultra (MS-6547v1.x) ATX mainbord)

I hope thats enough info
My confusion or problem is when i try to back-up any kind of game pc or psx or even audio CD's my CD-writer takes forever (I give up sometimes) I use clone cd ver4 or nero burning. I always write to my hard drive. It is so much faster if i use my dvd to write to the hard drive and read with my CD writer and nine times out of ten I am sucessful. My operating sytem is windows XP home edition

Now this is how it looks in device manager

Primary IDE Channel properties (advanced settings)
device0
Device type auto detection (box greyed out)
transfer mode dma if available
currant transfer mode ultra dma mode 5 (box greyed out)
device 1
device type auto detection
transfer mode dma if available
currant transfer mode not applicable (box greyed out)

secondary ide channel
device0
device type auto detection (box greyed out)
transfer mode dma if available
currant transfer mode pio (box greyed out)
device1
device type auto detection (box greyed out)
transfer mode dma if available
currant transfer mode pio mode (box greyed out)

I have now established that
primary ide master wdc wd 800bb-00caa0 (i guess that's my hard drive)
primary ide slave not installed

secondary ide master cd-rewriter
secondary ide slave dvd rom

You will have to excuse my ignorance, but should my dvd and cd rewriter be better running in dma mode and could this be why i am having problems. If this is so how do i get around this as i am unable to change the setting in device manager. windows xp will not let me activate dma mode. any help will be very appreciated

thanks

maggie

Hi supertropper105
You say should my dvd and cd rewriter be better running in dma mode .

Read the Information below and that should tell you!


IDE hard disks are accessed in one of two ways: PIO (Programmed Input/Output) or DMA (Direct Memory Access). There are 5 different PIO modes, from slowest (0) to fastest (4). The highest is normally used when the drive is automatically detected. Best check in your BIOS.

PIO: Traditionally, the transfer method for IDE devices has been PIO where data is transferred to/from IDE devices using the CPU. PIO requires a relatively large amount of dedicated CPU time (40%), especially when transferring large amounts of data to/from hard disk drives. Transfer speeds may be in the region of 16MB/sec.

DMA: DMA allows for the transfer of data to/from IDE devices without heavy dependence on the CPU and increases transfer speeds. Its operation requires a Bus Master driver.(It uses Bus Master IDE (BM-IDE) logic contained within the PIIXn IDE controller. The PIIXn IDE controller acts as a PCI Bus Master on behalf of IDE DMA slave devices, performing DMA transfers to/from devices on primary or secondary IDE channels).

UDMA: Newer Intel chipsets (PIIX3 and later) can perform fast DMA transfers using the UltraDMA/33 hardware interface. UDMA is an abbreviation of UltraDMA. Its operation requires its own Bus Master driver. Speeds of 33MB/sec can, theoretically, be achieved.

These can be a boost to speed - but mostly under certain circumstances. Disk-intensive applications will benefit from UDMA's increased throughput, and applications stored on the UDMA hard drive will load faster. Bootups should be faster.
I hope this helps
Laffin Assassin.

It's Nice to be Important!!!
But it's more Important to be NICE!!!

(in reply to supertropper105)