Solved: boot.ini questions

[Ron the Geek]

I'm having difficulty with a Dell laptop which has been configured oddly (at least to me, anyway...). The machine does not have a second partition—only drive c:. Yet, in the boot.ini file, the fifth line, which begins with multi(0), reads within it partition (2) instead of (1). So far, I've removed an autoexec.bat file, unchecked in MSCONFIG under the BOOT.INI tab /noguiboot, /bootlog, /basevideo and /sos which had been selected. This machine literally takes forever to boot up—at least 10 minutes. I've run AVG Free and SUPERAntiSpyware, both of which found a few things, but less than five with either one, which were repaired. What else should I be looking for? Should I edit the boot.ini file to read partition(1)? Help! Thanks!
RTG

 

[cmw2010]

Check in Device manager and see if the Primary IDE Channel has the Current transfer mode set for PIO instead of Ultra DMA Mode. If so uninstall and reboot to reinstall with the proper DMA mode.

 

[Ron the Geek]

Both Device 0 and 1 have transfer modes set to "DMA if available". Device 0's current transfer mode is PIO and Device 1's is Ultra DMA Mode 0. If I do need to uninstall, do I go to the Driver tab and select uninstall? Thanks!
RTG

 

[cmw2010]

Yep, that will do it, then just reboot and it will reinstall the drivers and it should then be set for the proper DMA mode.

 

[Ron the Geek]

That seems to have made a big difference! I rechecked after booting and both devices show DMA now. Thanks!!

 

[cmw2010]

Glad it helped, I have had three laptops in the past two weeks with the same problem.

 

[Ron the Geek]

Why do you suppose that is? Is it some type of network protocol?

 

[cmw2010]

After the Windows IDE/ATAPI Drivers receive a cumulative total of six time-out or CRC errors, the driver reduces the transfer mode from the highest DMA mode to lower DMA modes in steps. If the driver keeps receiving time-out or CRC errors, the driver will reduce the transfer mode to the PIO mode.