Thank you Eric,
yes, DMA is checked for the drive in Device Manager. The PC has 128MB of RAM
and the swap file in-use figure is currently 8MB according to System
Monitor.

I am using the utility HDTach to test the "Read Burst" speed which is
returning a figure 15.3MB/sec while a similar drive on the same
cable/controller, set as master, returns 30.3MB/sec which is what I expected
from both of them.

I have a utility from Western Digital (Dlgudma) which does what I want but,
obviously, this drive is a Maxtor and I find The Maxtor website so buggy
that I thought I would check here to see if anyone knew if they offered a
similar thing.
Thanks for you help,
ern.

"Eric" wrote in message
...
In the Device Manager, click on the drive under Disk Drives and make sure
that the DMA setting, if available, is enabled.

How much RAM does the PC have?

It could be that the hard drive isn't slow, but appears slow because the
system has to use the virtual-memory swap file intensely because of a
shortage of available RAM memory or an inadequate setting for virtual
memory
under the Performance tab of System Properties (System in the Control
Panel).

Eric,
PC Buyer Beware!
http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/

"ernie" wrote:

Not strictly a Windows 98 issue but here it is:
I have a Quantum Fireball 541 which transfers data at a very slow rate
according to HdTach.
Is there a utility for turning the rate up to the expected rate that I
can
download, I have powermax but it does not include this function and
neither
does Maxblast according to the blurb.
Regards,
ern.