I have a problem which has me baffled... I recently used CCleaner to remove some old files, and since then, my Pioneer DVR110D drive has been severely speed limited. It seems it's been artificially lowered to 2x rip/1x burn speed, and I can't seem to find any sort of hardware problem. I've done tests and the speed still shows as being 16x max, but when I actually try to burn a disc, regardless of what speed I choose, it burns at 1x. I've gone through Nero drivespeed and other utilities without success... is there a chance that CCleaner may have removed a crucial file? I don't have a backup unfortunately, and I've already reinstalled Nero, without any change. Any help would be appreciated. Update: I found the problem is actually some kind of bottleneck between the HD and the the rest of the system. My other HD works fine with the burner & software, so I ruled that out. I ran diagnostic tests on the drive and it seems fine, it's just very slow.
If you're using windows xp: Try going into device manager for IDE-Ata/Atapi controllers. Open up that controll tree and you'll see the primary and secondary controllers. Start with the primary,but you may have 2 of them. Double click the primary-or top one.Then click advanced setting. It should tell you if it's in DMA/UDMA/or if available.DMA is your Direct Memory Access. Do the same to the rest of those controllers. Make sure none of them say pio mode.Pio mode would definitely bottle neck you up! If one or more of those controllers are in pio mode,you'll have to click the driver tab for that controller/uninstall/and reboot. If more than 1 controller in pio mode,uninstall that one as well and reboot. One channel at a time. Can you post a nero burn log,and edit out the serial # at the top of the log.That serial # starts out like: 1A23-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx Just below that will tell us if you are in pio mode.
Thanks for the info. I used Nero infotool and found that the DMA has somehow been turned off on the secondary drive. DMA is on for my 2 DVD drives as well as the first HD, so this must be the problem. After checking the primary IDE controller options (which controls the 2 HDs), it is on PIO mode, but I have no idea how this happened. All the other drives are on UDMA access. How does one turn it back to DMA?
I'm not sure of what OS you have. Here's a guide: http://www.dvdplusvideo.com/dvdguide005.html If you have XP, basically you go into device manager and open up the tree for IDE ATA/Atapi controllers. Open 1 of them up,click advanced settings tab and see if it says pio mode. If it does,click drivers tab and reboot. Do the same if you have more controllers in pio mode,and reboot. Do this 1 controller at a time. After re-booting,xp should hook those drivers up automatically. Older OS,I'm not 100% sure of?
I did as the page said, and after rebooting 3 times it finally went back to DMA Mode 5. I think there's something physically wrong with the drive, though, as I get a SMART failure upon bootup, and after running a diagnostic utility, it shows that the error rate is above normal, and the SMART test fails. My comp is about 5 years old, but this WD drive is only about 2 years old, and shouldn't be failing like this. I don't know what, if any, external programs or problems may have caused it, but at least I now know what the root problem is. I may end up having to replace the drive entirely, which is going to be a real PITA. Thankfully there is nothing critical on the drive, and I think I can transfer what is on there to DVDR discs until I can pinpoint the specifc issue. Thanks for your help.
