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Fermoyle_/_ About Ken Fermoyle
I first learned of some UDMA drive problems in Win95/98/NT systems last November
from Brian Livingston, InfoWorld's "Window Manager" columnist. He wrote:
"There seems to be a discernible minority of UDMA drives that have been installed
in systems that aren't quite capable of supporting the maximum speeds UDMA can produce."
He suggested that the problems could result from electromagnetic interference on
the system bus, poor flow control in firmware or hardware, or poor drive circuitry.
Upon investigation I discovered that difficulties ranged from failure to complete
Plug and Play drive installation and slow-down/speed-up during file transfer, to
extremely long shutdown times for Win98 and even failure of hard drive access!
Moreover, it appears that not everyone who installs a UDMA hard drive is getting
UDMA performance. Let's take this situation first because it's easy to check (1)
whether your system supports UDMA, and (2) if it does, whether DMA (Direct Memory
Access) is enabled or not.
(1) Click Start/Settings/Control Panel/System, then the Device Manager tab and plus
sign at left of "Hard Disk Controllers." If you see an entry that includes
"PCI Bus Master IDE Controller," your system supports UDMA. If an entry
reads "Standard Dual IDE Controller," no bus mastering drivers are loaded
and UDMA is not supported.
(2) While still in Device Manager, click the plus sign at left of "Disk Drives,"
double-click a hard drive icon (not a floppy or removable-cartridge drive), and then
click the "Settings" tab. If you see a DMA box under "Options"
and that box is checked, the computer is configured for UDMA drives.
As for the other issues, I have two pieces of advice. First, a much more knowledgeable
expert than I am, Mark Stapleton (aka Sporkman), a mechanical engineer at Georgia
Tech Research Institute, has studied the complex problems extensively. His take and
that of Micheline "Tink" Long, an author-writer who does a lot of software
tech support work, appear on Tink's Website (http://www.csiway.com/~tink/techno-talk---computer-and-softw/and-sundry/dmawhite.lwp/odyframe.htm)
in the form of a White Paper prepared by Stapleton. The paper covers the complex
issues far better and more extensively than I could in the limited space available,
and I recommend it to you.
Second, all drive makers are now aware of the situation and should have suggestions,
if not solutions, should you have UDMA drive problems. Don't hesitate to contact
them. (See URLs in main article.) You might be lucky enough to get a tech support
person like Bill Rudock at Seagate, who helped me with a drive installation problem
(caused by my error in misreading instructions) and was the best, most patient tech
support guy I have encountered to date.
Ken
Copyright 1999 by Ken Fermoyle, Fermoyle Publications.
Ken Fermoyle has written some 2,500 articles for publications ranging
from Playboy, PC World and Popular Science to MacWeek & Microtimes. He was cohost/producer
of a radio show on computers and a partner in a DTP service bureau during the '80s.
Ken's Korner articles are available free to User Group newsletters and Websites.
For permission to reprint this article, contact kfermoyle@earthlink.net.
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