I'd check DMA settings on your HD's in Device Manager. Look in IDE Controllers.

DosFreak wrote:

I'd check DMA settings on your HD's in Device Manager. Look in IDE Controllers.

Well here's the properties of my laptop's IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers:

ATI PCI IDE Bus Master Controller

I/O Range: 8070 - 807F

Primary IDE Channel

Avanced Settings (Device 0)
Device Type: Auto Detection (note: greyed out)
Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: PIO Mode

Avanced Settings (Device 1)
Device Type: Auto Detection
Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Not Applicable

Resource settings:
I/O Range: 01F0 - 01F7
I/O Range: 03F6 - 03F6
IRQ: 14

Secondary IDE Channel

Avanced Settings (Device 0)
Device Type: Auto Detection (note: greyed out)
Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA Mode 2

Avanced Settings (Device 1)
Device Type: Auto Detection
Transfer Mode: DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode: Not Applicable

Resource settings:
I/O Range: 0170 - 0177
I/O Range: 0376 - 0376
IRQ: 15

Delete both Primary and Secondary IDE channels and reboot the system. I don't know why but on certain chipsets DMA/UDMA mode gets disabled by itself sometimes.

It gets disabled after a certain count of errors has occurred when accessing the drive.

Interesting, do you know what errors? (physical sector defects only?)

Nah - nothing with the physical disk. But anything with the data-transfer between the disk controller and the CPU, e.g. noise on the IDE-cable forcing a retransmission of the data-packet. Lowering the speed (mode) from UDMA 5, to 4, 3, and all the way down to PIO-mode is Windows way of trying to recover. Unfortunately, it will never try to up-speed again. A driver re-install will reset the mode.

As MiniMax said. MS have a KB article on it.

Thanks, folks! Sorry for my late reply since I've been down with flue for several days but....

So which step should I take? Should I delete both Primary and Secondary IDE channels and reboot the system, or should I edit the registry as suggested in the MS article? Which one is the safer route? And, uh, what's the worst could happen? (at least with DOS I always know what I'm doing 🙁 )

Also, does it actually related with the KB929338, or is it just coincidence?

Can't you uninstall the Windows Updates in the Software control panel?

You should do both. First, uninstall/reinstall the IDE driver, then change the registry.

Well, I have uninstalled the Primary IDE Controller and rebooted Winblows; shortly after I logged in, it automatically re-installed the Primary IDE Controller driver, and then prompted for a restart. Naturally, I clicked on 'Yes'.

But after restarting the second time, I checked Device Manager, and the Primary IDE Controller stayed in PIO mode. 🙁

I then did it the second time --uninstalling the Primary IDE Controller again and re-started the system. This time, however, my laptop just refused to boot; cursor blinking in text mode for quite a long time when it otherwise should display the Windows XP boot logo, followed by a message: 'Error reading drive, please push CTRL-ALT-DEL'.

And it happened several times before I could actually get into Windows.

Alas, when I finally logged in to Windows, the hard drive just kept spinning and spinning while it took Windows forever to load the TaskBar and Desktop Icons (ARG!), only to end with a Blue Screen of Death. ARGH!

And then I tried to start my laptop again; it failed to boot once (with the same 'please push CTRL-ATL-DEL' message), but the second time it booted, I managed to logged in to Windows and checked the Device Manager. This time, the Primary IDE Controller operates in Ultra DMA Mode 5. Horaaay! Thanks, folks! 😀

In general, my notebook's performance is improved. For instance, the WinAmp song I'm playing is no longer being jerky when I scroll up and down in an Outlook Express email. The CPU usage also improves: no longer it jumps to 80 percent whenever I load WinAmp (now it only jumps to 44 percent or such).

However, it took quite longer to start Windows, since now my hard drive just keeps spinning for quite a long time even after I logged in to Windows. However, it's just a minor problem; what's important is that my laptop is now back to normal --no more sluggishness!

By the way, I still wonder about one thing: is the problem really related to KB929338, or was it just a pure coincidence that it started right after I installed that one update? Also, after uninstalling KB925902 and KB929338 (I had to uninstall KB925902 before[/b] uninstalling KB929338 --at least according to MS), now Windows just keeps bugging me to install those updates. So should I re-installed those updates or not?

If this is a laptop....is the CDROM on the same IDE controller as the HD? I've seen that on alot of laptops.

I've seen this issue on alot of computers and it can be many things:

Copy protection drivers.
Multiple devices on the same IDE controller (CDROM/HD) (LS120/HD).
40pin IDE cable instead of 80pin
Buggy IDE drivers.
Buggy IDE controller

I've personally never seen Windows Update causing this problem but it's always a possibility and I haven't seen this problem for quite awhile now.

The most recent instance was about a year ago when I finally got around to sticking another IDE controller in my brother's K63-400. Before I did that music skipped like crazy, he couldn't multitask as much because the system would freeze, he couldn't do anything with the system while playing/copying a CD, burning a CD took FOREVER. (Seriously a 40x cdrom could only burn at like 8x-10x).

After putting a new IDE controller in there that fixed it all.....unfortunately his computer crashed a couple of months later due to the controller so I had to rip it out.

His computer is a Compaq with one of those shitty via mobo's that first came out so basically any addon card I stick in that thing ends up crapping out. Frickin' VIA.

I'm building myself a new computer once the new Intel processors come out so I'm probably going to give him my "old" computer I built back the end of 2002.