Newbie mistake with hard drives

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill Turner
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Bill Turner

I try to keep up with computer stuff, but here's something I missed
about hard drives. Hope this helps a newbie or two.

If you're using an ATA/IDE hard drive with a burst transfer speed higher
than 33Mhz, you must also use an 80-wire cable to reap the benefit. If
(like me) you install an ATA-100 HD and continue to use your old 40-wire
cable, the HD will default back to the old 33MHz speed.

Duh!

If you're not sure what you have, download the AIDA32 software, which
will tell you your HD model number and whether your HD is running at
it's full speed capability. After starting AIDA32, click on Storage>ATA
and select your HD. Look at the Max UDMA transfer mode and the Active
UDMA transfer mode. They should be the same. If (like mine) yours says
Max UDMA transfer mode is ATA-100 but active UDMA transfer mode is only
ATA-33, you have the wrong cable.

AIDA32 is available from http://www.aida32.hu/aida32.php and is free for
both personal and business use, although business use requires
registration.

If you'd like to actually measure the burst speed (read-only), there is
a program called HD Tach, available from
http://www.simplisoftware.com/Public/index.php?request=HdTach which is
free for personal use. There is a registered (paid) version which does
write testing also, but oddly, it is for sale only to OEMs. Go figure.

And if you don't do anything else, read the excellent article on HDs at
http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/index.html
You will learn more than you ever wanted to know about HDs. This is
where I discovered the difference in cables. It's a long article so
allow several hours to read the whole thing, or do it in several
sessions. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.
 
Bill Turner said:
I try to keep up with computer stuff, but here's something I missed
about hard drives. Hope this helps a newbie or two.

If you're using an ATA/IDE hard drive with a burst transfer speed higher
than 33Mhz, you must also use an 80-wire cable to reap the benefit. If
(like me) you install an ATA-100 HD and continue to use your old 40-wire
cable, the HD will default back to the old 33MHz speed.

Duh!

If you're not sure what you have, download the AIDA32 software, which
will tell you your HD model number and whether your HD is running at
it's full speed capability. After starting AIDA32, click on Storage>ATA
and select your HD. Look at the Max UDMA transfer mode and the Active
UDMA transfer mode. They should be the same. If (like mine) yours says
Max UDMA transfer mode is ATA-100 but active UDMA transfer mode is only
ATA-33, you have the wrong cable.
Click to expand...
<snip>

hey here's one for you...
and i;ve built *hundreds* of machines:

the AMD1200 i built for my girlfriend about 18 months ago
has always worked well but it never seemed quite as fast as i would
have expected.

the other day i turned it on for her and noticed that
when booting up...the bios message clearly stated:
harddrive dma capable but disabled

when i installed the WD harddrive i forgot to run the setup utility
that came with it and enable dma !

anyway, that was a pretty inexpensive upgrade for an 18 month old machine!
 
Thanks for the info I didnt know that, my hardrive was running at 66 when it
says it can go up to ata100, looks like ill need a new cable.
 
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