New BIOS and HDD questions 1

[nelljack]

I just upgraded my BIOS and installed a new HDD. I read one of the other threads but am unable to find it now.

My problem:The new HDD is 20.4GB and is primary master. The old HDD is 1.3GB and is slave. It only keeps data files.

The new setup seems to run slower than the old setup.

1. Do I do something to turn on the primary in settings and the 2nd off? or

2. Should I set BIOS to defaults? or

3. Should I delete both HDD in device manager and reboot? or

4. Move one HDD to hook up with CDROM and the other to my CD/RW? or

5. All of the above?

Any help will be appreciated. Please, if you answer any question(s), add the reason why.

 

[paparazi]

More details please!!!
If you only have 2 IDE channels, then if you are piggy backing your old drive to your new ATA100? it will slow the new drive down to the slowest device (your 1.3HD is probably only ATA33)
Problem is if you put a CDrom device with the new Hard drive the same thing will apply, actually worse because rom devices are slow coaches compared to hard drives.
So where does that leave you? well, new hard drive on Primary as MASTER, then 3 devices for secondary!! only you carn't do that!
Other options are: leave out the 1.3,
Buy either a raid PCI controller card or PCI IDE card that will give you more IDE connections.
Get rid of one of the Rom devices or
Or treat yourself to a new raid board !
Sorry mate! but thats how it is. Martin Vote if you found this post helpful please!!

 

[nelljack]

Thanks for the quick reply. I was thinking of just dropping, not literally, the 1.3 anyway. I had a suspicion it was slowing down the 20.4.

Also, a quick question again. The BIOS says both HDDs are Ultra DMAs. What does that mean? And do I have to change the HDD settings in control\device\hdd\settings to DMA?

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Both drives will be UDMA (Ultra Direct Memory Access). In all likelihood, your old drive will be UDMA3 (aka ATA33). Later UDMA versions have become known as ATA66 (UDMA4), 100 and 133, but are all based on the "Ultra" protocol for Directly Accessing RAM.

There are a number of issues relating to DMA - some controllers handle it better than others, and some versions of bus-mastering software are better than others. Here is just a sample - for my own board, an Abit KG7

http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kg7kr7/cd_devices.htm.

The DMA checkbox should be enabled - but will disable itself if a drive on the channel does not fully support the protocol. The advantages of using DMA in this way are lower CPU cycles used when accessing the disks, and quicker data transfer.


The Low-down;
(Sorry, source lost)

DMA

An acronym for Direct Memory Access. This is a particular method of getting information from memory, usually large blocks of memory by addressing it directly rather than through normal buffers and normal protocol. The calling software (sometimes embedded in hardware) must be intelligent enough to know where to find that particular block of memory. This is a method usually used by fast disk controllers, tape controllers, SCSI controllers and intelligent database operations. It is often 20 times faster than conventional methods of access.


UDMA

Acronym for Ultra Direct Memory Access. This is a protocol originally developed jointly by Quantum and Intel for transferring data between a computer's hard disk and its memory. The theoretical maximum data burst rate of an Ultra DMA 33 hard drive is 33.3 mbps. The original DMA protocol served the same purpose as UDMA, but could only transfer data at about half the speed. Utilizing UDMA, programs should open faster and run more smoothly. This is because UDMA can send more data to the memory in less time than hard drives that don't support UDMA.


I hope this helps.

 

[nelljack]

Thanks for all of your answers. Kudos to you.

Update: My computer went south with the new BIOS and HDD. I think it was the HDD mostly. But, here's what happened:

I booted up, all was fine. Then the display adapter began doing weird stuff, so I checked the settings, drivers, upgraded.

Then my network card began doing weird stuff. When it worked it was reallllllll sloooooow. I checked that too, even removed and reinstalled,etc.

When I rebooted: zip.

So I rebooted with my trusty Win98 boot disk. No command.com found, it wanted c:\windows\command.com. But I think it was corrupted. All of the boot disks I had, even Norton Utilities Rescue disk was not allowed to read the command.com from them. The monitor began not allowing a DIR command at the prompt to finish.

I changed out my floppy thinking it went bad. It was fine but I left the new one in case.

After all of this fighting for a day and half I took out the new BIOS and HDD, reinstalled my old HDD and BIOS and now it is working.

I'm thinking possibly one of those viruses that attack HDDs might have snuck in. But anyway, that has been my thrilling adventure with all the new setups. Sometimes, like they say, if it works DON'T FIX IT!

 

[CitrixEngineer]

A virus would only have got in if you had connected to the internet, or used an infected floppy.

If you change anything at a low level (BIOS, CPU, FSB, etc), you will need to re-install the entire Operating system, particularly if yo uare using one that is NT-based (W2k, XP, etc).

If the system could not boot from the floppy, it's possible that floppy booting was disabled in the BIOS. This doesn't seem likely, so I'd also *guess* that the BIOS needed flashing to a level that could cope with your on-board disk controller.

I totally agree with the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" sentiment, but sometimes I'll pop along to an auction, buy an old comp for a few bucks and deliberately "Fix it" for grins It's a great way to learn!

 

[nelljack]

Thanks for all of your help and answers. I am going to buy a new system and give this one to my hubby and let him have the joys of a new computer! No more replies are necessary.