From: Daave on
A friend recently asked me to look at his Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop
because he was having printing issues (which I won't go into
presently -- I haven't gotten that far yet). He also stated that he has
noticed some sluggish behavior, including the desktop taking a while to
refresh. That is what I wanted to address first.

I ran AVG and also the Bit Defender Live CD in addition to MBAM in Safe
Mode. There is no evidence of malware. Also there is at least 70% free
space on the hard drive. And there is extremely little paging activity
going on as well.

I did however notice that the hard drive's transfer mode is not optimal;
it reads "Multi-Word DMA Mode 2."

After entering the Service Tag # at the Dell site, I see that the hard
drive is:

4G167 Hard Drive, 40GB, I,9.5MM, 5.4K HIT-EUCL

I intend to perform the Dell diagnostics (the laptop does have a
diagnositcs partition) on the hard drive, but I'd also like to run the
hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic, too. But I can't tell what would
be. I suppose I could try Sea Tools for DOS. But if there's a better
method, I'm all ears.

Also, there is a method I've successfully used to force a drive that has
slipped into "PIO" mode to revert to DMA mode:

http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/

(I believe there is also a .reg file available that automates this
process.)

But I'm not sure this is the same situation. So all input is welcome.
Thanks in advance.

*** New Info***

The Dell Diagnostics found one error in the read test (Error code:
0F00:0244) and one error in the verify test (Error code: 0F00:1A44) --
and they were *both* the same exact message block (6118011). Of course,
this might mean the hard drive should be replaced, but I am suspicious
that there is a problem with only *one* message block. Perhaps the drive
is still sound. Complete text:

"Uncorrectable data error or media is write protected."

Sea Tools for DOS corroborated the Dell diagnostics: *one* error.

Thoughts?


From: Ben Myers on
Daave wrote:
> A friend recently asked me to look at his Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop
> because he was having printing issues (which I won't go into
> presently -- I haven't gotten that far yet). He also stated that he has
> noticed some sluggish behavior, including the desktop taking a while to
> refresh. That is what I wanted to address first.
>
> I ran AVG and also the Bit Defender Live CD in addition to MBAM in Safe
> Mode. There is no evidence of malware. Also there is at least 70% free
> space on the hard drive. And there is extremely little paging activity
> going on as well.
>
> I did however notice that the hard drive's transfer mode is not optimal;
> it reads "Multi-Word DMA Mode 2."
>
> After entering the Service Tag # at the Dell site, I see that the hard
> drive is:
>
> 4G167 Hard Drive, 40GB, I,9.5MM, 5.4K HIT-EUCL
>
> I intend to perform the Dell diagnostics (the laptop does have a
> diagnositcs partition) on the hard drive, but I'd also like to run the
> hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic, too. But I can't tell what would
> be. I suppose I could try Sea Tools for DOS. But if there's a better
> method, I'm all ears.
>
> Also, there is a method I've successfully used to force a drive that has
> slipped into "PIO" mode to revert to DMA mode:
>
> http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/
>
> (I believe there is also a .reg file available that automates this
> process.)
>
> But I'm not sure this is the same situation. So all input is welcome.
> Thanks in advance.
>
> *** New Info***
>
> The Dell Diagnostics found one error in the read test (Error code:
> 0F00:0244) and one error in the verify test (Error code: 0F00:1A44) --
> and they were *both* the same exact message block (6118011). Of course,
> this might mean the hard drive should be replaced, but I am suspicious
> that there is a problem with only *one* message block. Perhaps the drive
> is still sound. Complete text:
>
> "Uncorrectable data error or media is write protected."
>
> Sea Tools for DOS corroborated the Dell diagnostics: *one* error.
>
> Thoughts?
>
>

The drive is a Hitachi. Run Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test. Run HDAT2 to
examine the SMART data which keeps track of stuff like relocated
sectors... Ben Myers
From: Brian K on
Daave,

Before doing anything drastic, reset the DMA mode. Uninstall the IDE Channel
in Device Manage. Restart and the Channel will automatically install. See if
the DMA mode is now 5.



From: Daave on
Brian K wrote:
Daave wrote:

>> I did however notice that the hard drive's transfer mode is not
>> optimal;
>> it reads "Multi-Word DMA Mode 2."

> Before doing anything drastic, reset the DMA mode. Uninstall the IDE
> Channel in Device Manage. Restart and the Channel will automatically
> install. See if the DMA mode is now 5.

I think I may have jumped to a false conclusion!

Primary IDE Channel is Multi-Word DMA Mode 2. But Secondary IDE Channel
is the preferred Ultra DMA Mode 5. I'll bet the optical drive is on the
primary channel. Still, what is the way to know for sure?


From: Daave on
Ben Myers wrote:
> Daave wrote:
>> A friend recently asked me to look at his Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop
>> because he was having printing issues (which I won't go into
>> presently -- I haven't gotten that far yet). He also stated that he
>> has noticed some sluggish behavior, including the desktop taking a
>> while to refresh. That is what I wanted to address first.
>>
>> I ran AVG and also the Bit Defender Live CD in addition to MBAM in
>> Safe Mode. There is no evidence of malware. Also there is at least
>> 70% free space on the hard drive. And there is extremely little
>> paging activity going on as well.
>>
>> I did however notice that the hard drive's transfer mode is not
>> optimal; it reads "Multi-Word DMA Mode 2."
>>
>> After entering the Service Tag # at the Dell site, I see that the
>> hard drive is:
>>
>> 4G167 Hard Drive, 40GB, I,9.5MM, 5.4K HIT-EUCL
>>
>> I intend to perform the Dell diagnostics (the laptop does have a
>> diagnositcs partition) on the hard drive, but I'd also like to run
>> the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic, too. But I can't tell what
>> would be. I suppose I could try Sea Tools for DOS. But if there's a
>> better method, I'm all ears.
>>
>> Also, there is a method I've successfully used to force a drive that
>> has slipped into "PIO" mode to revert to DMA mode:
>>
>> http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/
>>
>> (I believe there is also a .reg file available that automates this
>> process.)
>>
>> But I'm not sure this is the same situation. So all input is welcome.
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>> *** New Info***
>>
>> The Dell Diagnostics found one error in the read test (Error code:
>> 0F00:0244) and one error in the verify test (Error code: 0F00:1A44)
>> -- and they were *both* the same exact message block (6118011). Of
>> course, this might mean the hard drive should be replaced, but I am
>> suspicious that there is a problem with only *one* message block.
>> Perhaps the drive is still sound. Complete text:
>>
>> "Uncorrectable data error or media is write protected."
>>
>> Sea Tools for DOS corroborated the Dell diagnostics: *one* error.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>>
>
> The drive is a Hitachi. Run Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test. Run HDAT2
> to examine the SMART data which keeps track of stuff like relocated
> sectors... Ben Myers

Thanks for the suggestion, Ben.

I ran Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test. The message:

Problem detected on a non Hitachi disk drive, Please contact your HDD
supplier for additional support. Disposition Code = 0x70.

I'm not familiar with HDAT2. Is this what you're talking about?:

http://www.hdat2.com/download.html