I had this problem a year ago, and it was a fairly simple fix. I can't remember what I had to do, and I cant find the place where I found the answer!

My primary IDE is no set to udma 2 and it needs to be 5. I remember I think that it is caused by it auto setting due to an error. I've tried uninstalling throught the control panel all my ide controllers, hard drives and disk drives. That didn't work. I've not tried to physically un install anything. What do I need to do?

That's something that usually occurs in bios. You should get a boot screen that says something like "hdd 0 udma 100" or words to that effect.

If that's true then check the properties for the hdd under device manager and make sure the dma box is checked.

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I don't think it has anything to do with the bios. I've not changed anything in the bios for a very long time and this just started happening. I think in xp if dma has like 6 errors it drops you down a notch. And that keeps happening until you are at pio mode. I just can't remember how to fix it!

First I've heard of that but I've only been using XP for 6 months or so.

I do know that's typical for a broken ground wire in an 80 wire hdd cable...reverts back to ATA33.

Looks like I have some research to do.

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"Windows XP downgrades the Ultra DMA transfer mode after receiving more than six CRC errors. Whenever possible, the operating system will step down one UDMA mode at a time (from UDMA mode 4 to UDMA mode 3, and so on)."

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/IDE-DMA.mspx

But the fix isn't working for me this time. So maybe I have a different problem?

Anyone else have any ideas? I'll try a new cable this weekend if nothing else works.

I had the same problem, after much searching I discovered I had a 40 pin cable installed instead of an 80. They look pretty close, but the 80 pin cable has a blue end to connect to the motherboard.