WinXP+Abit KT7 and ATA33/66 problems.

[PeTe]

First, heres my setup:
IDE-1 : Disk 0: Maxtror 80G ATA133 7200rpm drive
IDE-1 : Disk 1: IBM 40G ATA66 5400rpm drive
IDE-2 : Disk 0: LiteOn 24x-burner
IDE-2 : Disk 1: IBM 16.8G ATA33 5400 drive

Cant get my WinXP to use ata66 on my primary hd, when i put a ATA100/133 cable on the IDE-1 on boot screen it shows ATA66, but windows shows Disk 0 as ATA33 drive and disk 1 as ATA66.

When use Sisoft Sandra HD-test i get 3500!!! with the MAXTOR drive, the 40G IBM scores ~8000. When i use a OLD ata33-cable i get around 13000-14000 with maxtor and 7500 with the IBM.

So the hell is wrong here ? I want to use ATA66 for better hd-performance but the damn thing wont work.

PeTe

[Wombat]

How are you connecting the hard drives? Motherboard IDE? A secondary card? Specs on both would be good.

The KT7 I believe uses the 686A south bridge. That only handles ATA/66.

I think that whatever you're using doesn't know how to handle the Maxtor. You may have to use a utility to make the Maxtor say that it is ATA/100, or ATA/66. You don't gain any performance having the drive set to faster than the motherboard, although it usually works.

Not sure about this, but it's the first place I'd look.

[PeTe]

Yep, its connected to IDE-1 on my Abit KT7 and i know that my mb only can handle ATA66, but the only way to get that is to use a newer cable.

Hmm.. on the newer cable does it matter that i have set the primary/slave options with a jumper ? Because i know that the newer cables like to have cable select on.

Tried to find a program like that on Maxtor site, but coudnt find one.. well i sent a e-mail to them asking about it. Im pretty sure that its just that my Abit doesnt know how to handle the ATA133 drive.

PeTe

[Wombat]

The ATA standards are backwards-compatible. ATA-133 adds some new addressing bits, but your drive is not big enough to need the new address space.
It seems that the KT7 can't understand the drive correctly. Have you looked to see if there is a BIOS update for the KT7?



The jumpering shouldn't matter at all.

Hmm, it looks like Maxtor agrees with me. "The symptom manifests itself as a system hangs at boot, and performance problems."

http://www.maxtor.com/products/DiamondMax/techsupport/TechnicalProcedures/21006.html

Tried to find a program like that on Maxtor site, but coudnt find one..

I found it right away: http://www.maxtor.com/softwaredownload/main/100updt.exe

[PeTe]

Hmm. The only problem is that my HD isnt supported on that program, and it says:

"To eliminate this problem, Maxtor has developed the UDMAUPDT.EXE The UDMAUPDT.EXE changes the Ultra DMA Mode for the following hard drive families (and newer) ONLY:... "

Edit:actually it might be supported, but still not sure if they mean ATA133-series too, because the prog cant set it to ATA133.

And if i use that proggy, i cant set it back to 133 even if it works.

PeTe

[ayoub_ibrahim]

someone has to ask just to clarify so is the blue end connector plugged into the m/board?

[PeTe]

YES, the blue end is connected to the MB.

Or atleast it was when i tried to get it working, now using a old cable. I know how to use those cables, you know.

Im just waiting for mail from MAXTOR that can i use that program or not. Maybe they are doing a new version from it to support ATA133.

PeTe