DMA/PIO Question

RyanK23 · 11-03-2006, 07:21 PM

Hello everyone,

If my hard drive reverted down to PIO mode would that cause the S.M.A.R.T. utility to tell me "Primary Drive is Bad...Backup and replace" upon startup? Would the PIO mode make my hard drive run so slow that S.M.A.R.T. thinks it's bad or would S.M.A.R.T. still be correct about the error message regardless of the PIO/DMA setting?

**The_Other_One** · 11-03-2006, 08:16 PM

I don't think the interface would cause SMART to do anything differently. My guess is if the drive went down to PIO mode with no reason, something's wrong with the drive.

Does it show PIO in the BIOS, or in Windows?

RyanK23 · 11-03-2006, 08:47 PM

Well the cd and cdrw part of my cdrw/dvd combo drive stopped working (DVD still works however). I read that after six errors it will start reverting the DMA settings down to PIO which is what could cause the failure. Right after the CD/CDRW failure, I rebooted and got the SMART error message "Hard drive bad...backup and replace" and it is running extremely slow...im not at the computer now so I don't know if they did revert to PIO, if the drives are on the same IDE channel, or if that even matters...or if it's just a coincidence that the CDRW stopped working AND the hard drive went bad at the exact same time...

RyanK23 · 11-10-2006, 11:16 PM

UPDATE - Fixed cdrw drive by dissassembling and cleading the drive, got all the dust out and used alcohol and a q-tip on the lens...Hard drive is still bad and computer overheats when gaming...Do you think the overheating could be a result of my bad hard drive? The heat isn't coming from the hard drive but is it possible that the processor is being overworked trying to process the bad hard drive?

11-03-2006, 07:21 PM	#1 (permalink)
RyanK23 New Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 10	DMA/PIO Question Hello everyone, If my hard drive reverted down to PIO mode would that cause the S.M.A.R.T. utility to tell me "Primary Drive is Bad...Backup and replace" upon startup? Would the PIO mode make my hard drive run so slow that S.M.A.R.T. thinks it's bad or would S.M.A.R.T. still be correct about the error message regardless of the PIO/DMA setting?

11-03-2006, 08:16 PM	#2 (permalink)
The_Other_One Super Moderator Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Lexington, NC Age: 24 Posts: 12,382	I don't think the interface would cause SMART to do anything differently. My guess is if the drive went down to PIO mode with no reason, something's wrong with the drive. Does it show PIO in the BIOS, or in Windows? __________________ Desktop * Athlon X2 4200 \| 2G RAM \| 160G HD \| 7600GT Laptop1 * C2D T5550 \| 3G RAM \| 120G HD \| Intel x3100 Laptop2 * C2D T5250 \| 2G RAM \| 160G HD \| Intel x3100

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11-03-2006, 08:47 PM	#3 (permalink)
RyanK23 New Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 10	Well the cd and cdrw part of my cdrw/dvd combo drive stopped working (DVD still works however). I read that after six errors it will start reverting the DMA settings down to PIO which is what could cause the failure. Right after the CD/CDRW failure, I rebooted and got the SMART error message "Hard drive bad...backup and replace" and it is running extremely slow...im not at the computer now so I don't know if they did revert to PIO, if the drives are on the same IDE channel, or if that even matters...or if it's just a coincidence that the CDRW stopped working AND the hard drive went bad at the exact same time...

11-10-2006, 11:16 PM	#4 (permalink)
RyanK23 New Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 10	UPDATE - Fixed cdrw drive by dissassembling and cleading the drive, got all the dust out and used alcohol and a q-tip on the lens...Hard drive is still bad and computer overheats when gaming...Do you think the overheating could be a result of my bad hard drive? The heat isn't coming from the hard drive but is it possible that the processor is being overworked trying to process the bad hard drive?