SATAII drive in PIO-mode - PATA/SATA IDE driver package not working

[Jonathan Strange]

Hey,

Don't know where to turn, trying different forums. Hope someone has any ideas.

System:
AMD 3500+ AM2
Asus M2V-MX
Samsung 250GB SATA II 3.0gbps (windows xp32 installed).
older HDD WD 120gb IDE and DVD-RW drive

- - -

The problem is that the Samsung SATA drive is stuck in PIO-mode, which means moving files, extracting .rar archives etc. etc. cause ~100% processor use. -> everything slows down.

DMA mode set as auto for the SATA drive in bios.

Device manager shows this + PIO only for primary IDE. Tried unistalling the driver and rebooting.

Tried installing VIA PATA/SATA IDE Driver Package V1.60A (also tried 1.40).

Nothing seems to help. Windows works ok as long as you don't do anything heavy with the HDD. Old IDE HDD and DVD-RW working fine.

- - -

I hope my explanation makes any sense and thanks in advance for any ideas you might have.

- Oscar

[cas]

Did you install the VIA 4 in 1 drivers and the mobo drivers cd? Also u should uninstall the ata channel under ide/ata/atapi controller for the samsung sata drive and reboot, not what u mention unistall drivers.

[ThePulp]

Hello, this is my first post. I have made everything possible until I found this forum. Thanks for your existence!
Everything started because I had the same problem like Jonathan Strange but with a Samsung 160Gb running in PIO mode (although DMA is working fine in another

partition in the same PC). So I tried to upgrade VIA Hyperion 4in1 drivers. Everything seemed to be ok until the Hardware Wizard says (sorry for my translation, my

language is spanish):

There was a problem installing device "hdc".
The driver was not thought for this plattform.

Then I had 3 items under IDE/ATA/ATAPI drivers
(1 ok and 2 with exclamation logos)
Driver principal of bus VIA (ok)
Unknown device (!)
Unknown device (!)

Well, that was nothing... since then everything went worse.

I tried to unistall and I couldn't uninstall drivers. I mean, I can unistall drivers but after i reboot my pc hangs and shows me this error code:
0x0000007B (0xF7C05528,0xc00000034,0x00000000,0x00000000)
. The temporal solution I found was to restart with the last known good configuration and yes... it starts upgrading drivers by itself... so when I reboot it hangs again... and

so on...

My hardware
Motherboard: Biostar M7VIG400 combo with Duron3000+ ~1600Mhz (VIG0607UL400)
Processor: AMD Duron 1.6Ghz (Applebred )
RAM: 1GB DDR 400 (2x512Mb)
GPU: nVidia GeForce MX4000 64MB
Primary Master: Samsung SP 1604N TM100-30 (160 Gb) (the one that worked in PIO mode)
Primary Slave: Hitachi HDS7225 80 VLAT20 V320 A60A (60 Gb) (worked in UDMA)
Secondary Master: Western Digital WD800BB-55JKA0 05.01c05 (80GB) (worked in UDMA)
Secondar Slave: LG HL-DT-ST DVD RAM GSA-H42N RL00

My software
OS: Windows XP Service Pack 2
Programs installed (just the ones running in the background)
NVidia Control Panel

Please help... It´s Sunday 7:55 A.M. and I'm without sleeping because I need to work again on Monday. Thank you VIA for your great support

[ThePulp]

Sorry. The software list is incomplete.
This is the one
Programs installed (just the ones running in the background)
AVG 8 Antivirus Free
Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall 4.2.3
NVidia Control Panel
Alcohol 120%
Hardware Sensors Monitor
Firefox

Thanks again

[Mr. Chris]

Ugh. You can try doing a Repair of your existing Windows install. Boot up the PC with your Windows CD in the CD drive (you will have to change the Boot Order in BIOS so the PC boots from CD) Once Windows starts, it will ask "what do you want to do?" Tell it you want to repair an existing install of Windows. DO NOT USE THE REPAIR CONSOLE, it does not work.

After windows is done, let us know if the PC is working better. Chris.

[tcsenter]

Uninstall Alcohol 120%

[ThePulp]

EXCELENT!

I 've done a system repair and the pc started once ok.
Then I went to the system properties and everything started again.
So I've uninstalled Alcohol 120% and voila! Everything is great now!!!
Seems to be that Alcohol 120% virtual unit drivers where the problem.

THANK YOU GUYS FOR YOUR GREAT SUPPORT!

[ThePulp]

After all I've been thru I've forgotten the original trouble:
Now every drive in working in Ultra DMA mode, so problem fixed.

The only thing I notice (that didn't happen before) is that the System Poperties window freezes when I click the Automatic Updates Tab. Does it have any relation with this issue?

Thanks again...