Burning cd/dvd is very slow. I checked into the device manager and my primary ID channel's Transfer mode is set to "DMA if available" and Current transfer mode to ''PIO". Secondary channel's Transfer mode is set to "DMA if available" and current transfer mode says "Not applicable". I tried uninstalling the secondary driver and found the problem still persist after restarting the PC and another article in the net advocated to resolve this issue through the registry and I had to navigate to the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11C E-BFC1-08002BE10318} Where there are supposed to be the subkeys 0000 0001 0002 and more depending about your system. 0001 and 0002 are the primary and secondary ID channel respectively. To my shock I found only the subkey 0000. So my problem is in not having the other two crucial subkeys and it would be of great help if anybody who knew about it could tell me how to create these two registry keys. I use nero 7 for all my burning purposes, which has been rendered impossible after these keys went missing.

You probably need to install the motherboard chip set drivers in order to get the drive to run in a DMA mode. If that isn't the issue then one one of your drives may be failing. WinXP will automatically step down the transfer speed if the drive or controller can't keep up. The usual cause of that is a failing drive but could be a loose or broken data cable. Most likely the chip set drivers though. I can't steer you to the drivers because you didn't post your system specs as instructed when starting a thread here.

Thanks a lot for taking time to showing me the direction as to where I could find the answer. As I earlier mentioned, I once again tried to uninstall the secondary IDE channel, but in vain. So I decided, to try out the same technique with the primary channel ( nothing ventured, nothing lost). And to my pleasant surprise, I got the current transfer mode back to UDMA 5 after restarting the computer twice,once for the uninstallation to take effect, and second time after windows reinstalled the driver. It now works fine, just a little slower than usual, or that is what I think. I shouldn't be too complaining about that, now that it works like a charm. I once again appreciate your taking time to solve my problem. Thanks you so much for the same.

Probably just your perception. If running in DMA mode 5 that is most likely the fastest mode for your drive. There could be a mode 6 if your controllers and the drive support it. That is a drive with a rating of 133mbps. Do you now have THREE listings for your IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers? You should have primary, secondary and standard dual channel or something similar for each controller.

True, maybe just my perception. I do have three channels, two primary and one secondary. Of which only one is in UDMA 5, while the rest says it's not applicable,I think it's because they are not connected to the port( I'm no good at hardware). But, when I checked the registry, it still has only the 0000 subkey and no 0001 or 0002 subkey. So far so good in its functionality. Thank you once again for your help at offing.

WinXP MAY have installed some motherboard chip set drivers or it may not have. Post your motherboard brand and model.

This is what I found from the system information in system tools. System Manufacturer: INTEL_ System Model: D945GCR_ But then my intel desktop board ,essential series, carton reads, D945GCPE I don't understand why the two sources give different numbers. Sorry if I confused you. I'm not even a novice with hardware, sorry about it.