Windows 7: Old PC - Problem to setup DMA with ALi M1671 ALADDiN-P4 chipset

Hi,

I need your help for allowing Windows 7 to operate 160 Gb IDE HDD in UDMA mode.

My Notebook HP Omnibook xe4500 is 8 years old with a recent HDD :
- CPU: P4 on ALi M1671 ALADDiN-P4 chipset
- RAM: 1152 Mb (128 Mb SDR 133 + 1024 Mb DDR 266)
- HDD: 160 Gb (Samsung HM160HC)
- Video : ATI Mobility Radeon AGP - M6 Mobility
- Audio : Ali M5451
- DVD/RW: TSSTcorp CDDVDW SN-S082H

I have installed Windows 7 Ultimate from the scratch because processing from Win XP SP3 has always blocked and never finished. Before PC was worked fine with XP.
But Windows 7 is working very very slowly because 160 Gb IDE HDD is driven by ATA CHANNEL 0 (atapi.sys and atapiport.sys) controller is in PIO 4 mode instead of UDMA mode (5 or 6), this is keeping the CPU always busy and the PC unavailable for any task.

Therefore the DVD/RW driver is on ATA CHANNEL 1 and set without problem to UDMA 2 by Windows 7.

Within that IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller section, there is a third controller ULi M5229 PCI MASTER IDE.

For information, HDD is seen by the bios (M1.94 last from HP) as a 137 Gb disc (maximal capacity allowed by that bios).

Program 4008.exe allows Win XP tomanage IDE HDD with a capacity beyond 137 Gb by installing SCSI/RAID Host Controller with another IDE controller , Ali Ultra IDE (alihdd.sys), both allow to pilot that IDE HDD as a scsi device and walking around 137 Gb limitation.

But installation of 4008.exe in Windows 7 hangs system by giving a blue screen on each required restart with that message error : 0x000000F4 (0x00000003, 0x85A3CD40, 0x85A3CEAC, 0x82E287B0).

I need your support for allowing Windows 7 to setup 160 Gb IDE HDD in UDMA mode and having that PC up running Windows 7 well even its age.

Hi,

Without answer from someone, I walk around that bios limitation issue by following recommendation from Review of the Samsung HM160HC, World's Fastest ATA/IDE Mobile hard drive - Page 4 and down sizing the 160 Gb disk to 137 Gb by using Samsung ESTOOL.
Windows 7 is now running fine on my old HP Omnibook xe4500 which can be used again for a while.