MS-DOS Compatability Mode ????

[PapillonIrl]

Okay since I put my new 40GB 7200RPM disk in, both my new disk and my 10GB 5400RPM disk are showing up in device manager as running in "MS-DOS compatibility mode", it goes on to say that this will affect performance. I have recently brought my RAM up to 512 MB, and the system is not performing as I expected, I think the disk writing or reading is the bottlenecjk though. Could someone explain to me what "MS-DOS compatability mode" is and why my disks would decide to use it ?

Heres my system info if anyones interested.

PentIII intel 810e
10GB System drive(5400RPM)
40GB audio drive(7200RPM)
512MBRAM
Win98SE
BIOS ID String:07/06/2000-i810-47B27X-6A69MG0AC-00

Cheers,

Nathan.

P.S. The disk access method is set to Auto in the BIOS, but both are listed upon bootup as using LBA.

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Oh indeed...the real mode (ms-dos compatible) driver will give considerably worse performance!!!

There could be a number of reasons for this problem. The first thing I'd look at is the controller. Try finding updated drivers for it, and make sure that there aren't any resource conflicts.

If you're running any fancy drive software (overlay drivers, disk image, etc) then it could also be something with that.

Finally I think it could be caused by a virus, but that's the last thing I'd suspect in this particular case.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[RWhite]

Slack, as usual, is 100% right on. I'd bet the drivers for the IDE controller are not loaded properly, or have become corrupted somehow.

You might try deleteing the IDE controller driver from Device manager, then IMMEDIATELY reboot and allow the system to detect and re-load them.

 

[PapillonIrl]

Will do...many thanks.

Nathan