Check for DMA vs PIO

[pickles]

Some time ago my DVD burner started going slow (It seemed to be a process getting slower and slower, but perhaps I hadn't watched close enough). It's a little old and figured it was just dying. What I think happened though is that I was using ImgBurn to try and read a bad disc, and increased the number of retries (my fault, entirely, this is a feature request, not a bug report ) and I think that caused Windows to change my IDE channel to go from Ultra DMA 2 to PIO (without telling me, of course, and I had no idea it even would). I kept using ImgBurn, however I had to lower the burn rate to 2.4x after burning a few coasters. (This is where I thought it was gradual, as I thought I went slower and slower, but still had some success.. Perhaps not though, been awhile.)

 

Anyway, to get to the point, is it possible for ImgBurn to detect what transfer mode a drive is using and inform the user if read/write speed is set too high for PIO? (As a consequence, it will inform the user that they are using PIO at all and a good indication that Windows changed it.. If someone only burns at a slow speed and Windows switches them to PIO, it seems moot anyway..)

[Cynthia]

Hi and welcome to the forum, pickles!

 

It's been suggested several times before and the main reason for it not have been implemented yet is that there is no good way to determine if DMA is in PIO mode.

 

Many times we have told users that they are in PIO mode and they have returned with images from Windows Device Manager stating that they are in DMA mode, so the reason is that Windows can report the devices to be in DMA mode even if they are in PIO mode. So until Microsoft fixes this 'false' reporting - the author has put these suggestions on ice.

 

You can also get slow speeds with crappy media, so it's not 100% indication to just trust the speed factor.

[pickles]

Hi and welcome to the forum, pickles!

 

Thanks much for the reply and explanation. I had considered I wouldn't have been the first to suggest this and looked but I didn't find anything (probably my fault really). I just thought it would be nice, since ImgBurn has been so newbie-friendly with other things, I've found. Does make sense the problem is with Windows, too, just in general, not to mention Windows itself can report being in the wrong mode...

 

Anyway, here's a big kudos for ImgBurn in the first place (great software and very grateful I'm not pressed into buying Nero.. ick).