Another DMA problem

Hi! I installed another burner and it is my slave, I can't get the DMA to turn on. I have tried everything that I have seen written in ths forum and still no luck. All I get is DMA off autorun-on, my master say's DMA on autorun-on. It was the same way when I had just a DVD-ROM, I just can't figure it out. Thanks in advance

 

Hello.

Did you set the pins on the new burner to slave? Otherwise you may have to try switching the drives around. Make the current master the slave and vice versa. Just be sure to change the master/slave pin settings.

Use Device Manager to both uninstall all the IDE Channels and the drives listed under DVD/CD-ROM Drives.

Also try disconnecting both drives and restarting. Then power down and connect the new burner that won't turn DMA on. Restart and see if DMA will activate after the uninstall/install.

 

I am using cable select, I tried reversing them, because my Samsung would't burn from iso. After I changed them around, they both work, but slave still won't turn DMA on. I don't see PIO, just DMA off. Burn speed didn't seem to slow. Maybe this is just a quirk in my Dell machine.

 

that's very good advise by Laddyboy! good job! hope it works.

 

They could be "mis-matched" drives. What I mean by this is drives that don't work well together in the cable select setting. I've seen this happen alot. It's best to use the Master/Slave settings for this reason.

If that doesn't solve the problem, check all the pins on the back of the DVD drives (the ones for the ribbon cable). It's very easy to bend a pin and that will cause problems.

If both things above and what laddyboy suggested don't work, change the ribbon cable. They seem to go bad easily.

If all the above still fails, post back and we can "force" DMA setting with the registry.

 

@dolphin2..... can you tell me how you can "FORCE" DMA on? I would love to learn that!

 

@IHoe
Check your PM's.

 

Well I tried everything, no success. Only my HDD and master, will go to DMA on, no matter which burner is in slave, it says DMA off and autorun on. Burn time on slave for a two hour DVD was just over 22 min. that is total from encoding thru write time. That is with DMA off. Not too bad.

 

that time is not bad at all!!! with DMA off, too! wow. nice. As long as the disk is a good burn..... no worries then.

 

Some controllers misreport DMA. Yours may be one of them.

 

Thanks, burn qualities are in the 95-97% range, not bad. Thanks again