confusion in IDE1/IDE2, device manager settings in XP

b0nd · 08-15-2006, 03:24 AM

Hello all,
I would like to frame the question with reference to windows XP.
On the motherboard i can see 3 slots.
1. Floppy
2. IDE1
3. IDE2

i've a hard drive and cd-rom, both connected with the same data bus.

Initially this common data bus was plugged into IDE1. At that time i had "hda" and "hdb"
now i've plugged the bus into IDE2 so now i'e "hdc" and "hdd".

In XP's device manager, IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers has the following sub sections:
1. Intel(r) 82801AA bus master IDE controller
2. Primary IDE channel
3. Secondary IDE channel.

Question 1> How am i suppose to know which one i've to check, Primary IDE channel or Secondary ?
How they have connection with IDE1 and IDE2 ??

regards

ZX_SA · 08-15-2006, 03:56 AM

Primary IDE channel will be IDE1 while the Secondary IDE channel will be IDE2. Note that some motherboards may label the ports IDE0 and IDE1 respectively.

Why do you want to plug both into IDE2? You should really have your harddrive plugged into IDE1 and the CDROM into IDE2. That leads to slightly better IDE transfer rates when accessing both drives at the same time.

b0nd · 08-15-2006, 04:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZX_SA

Why do you want to plug both into IDE2? You should really have your harddrive plugged into IDE1 and the CDROM into IDE2. That leads to slightly better IDE transfer rates when accessing both drives at the same time.

Thanks for the information.

Now few more questions.

With the same configuration, when i open "Secondary IDE Channel Properties" in device manager, i find the following entries: (not stating all)

Quote:

General
Nothing is written under 'Device usage'

Advanced Settings

Device 0 ------------------
Device Type: Auto Detection
Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA Mode2

Device 1 ------------------
Device Type: Auto Detection
Transfer Mode: PIO Only
Current Transfer Mode: PIO Mode

Q 2
What are these "Device 0" and "Device 1" ???

Q 3> Does "Ultra DMA Mode 2" showing that the DMA is enabled ???

Actually i had problem of disable DMA. So i switched to IDE2 from IDE1.

you can see my earlier post when i was trying to enable DMA here
but didn't get success. So switched to IDE2.

regards

ZX_SA · 08-15-2006, 05:09 AM

I'm afraid I can't be 100% sure about this, but I would assume that Device0 and Device1 would refer to the Master and Slave drive on the Secondary IDE channel. Obviously which is the HDD and which the CDROM depends on how you configured the jumpers on the back of the devices.

I can tell you that if Windows says the current transfer mode is UDMA2, then DMA is enabled for the specified device (in this case I believe the Master device).

If I were in your position, I'd put the harddrive on IDE1 with the jumper settings on the back of it set to "SINGLE" or "MASTER". Then put the CDROM on IDE2 also as "SINGLE" or "MASTER".

Then check again the DMA settings in Windows. The problem could be that there is some incompatibility between the harddrive and CDROM and keeping them on separate channels may sort it out. Otherwise, try borrowing a CDROM from a friend to replace yours and see if that works.

b0nd · 08-15-2006, 05:38 AM

Thanks ZX_SA.
Right now i'm trying to bring my linux up, as i changed from /dev/hda to /dev/hdc. Will try out your ideas after that.
thanks once again.

regards

shaunw · 08-17-2006, 07:15 PM

Never ever put your CD/DVD drives on the same cable as your hard
disk drives. If you do then you slow the hard disk drive down to
the speed of the CD/DVD and that is really slow.
Put hard disk drives on IDE0 and CD/DVD drives on IDE1.
If you only have one hard disk drive then set the jumpers on the
back of the drive to the master position. If you have a second hard
drive set its jumpers to the slave position.
If you only have one CD/DVD drive then set the jumpers on this to master.