Hey guys,
I was trying to get GTA Vice City to run a little smoother and the stated on their site as one of many things to speed up the game as "make sure DMA is enabled for your hard disks and cd-rom" As mine wasn't I though I would try it out. I checked both of them and then restarted the comp, but now during boot up the computer locks up. It's after the second splash screen (which sometimes says updating MS win... updating complete, continuing loading win...) then my thinking light on the computer stays on and stays that way.
Here's my specs:
WIN 98se
3.00 intel p4
ASUS MB p4p800-vm
128 Radon 9600se
512 ddr ram
LG cdrom 52x24x52x dvdx16
Western Digital 40g HD

If there's a way to disable the DMA from MS-DOS mode might work. Of if anyone can help me turn it off in bios if possible.
Thanks a lot!
Dylan

Oh yeah, I tried safe mode but unfortunatly when I go into device manager and all that to uncheck the boxes they are not there. Not in safe mode that is. :-(

Welcome to PCHF!

There is a way to turn off DMA as a dos command. It's lengthy but in your case it'll be worth it.

1) Hold down F8 (in OSR2) or Ctrl (in Win98) to bring up the Startup Menu.

2) Use your numeric keys or up/down arrow keys to select the "Command prompt only" choice, and then press Enter. It is option #5 if not using a Network or TCP/IP, or option #6 if connected to a Network or/and using TCP/IP protocol.

3) Run this command from the DOS prompt:
REGEDIT C:\NODMA.REG HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ENUM\ESDI

to save (export) the HKLM Registry key above to a plain text file (NODMA.REG). The .REG extension is necessary in case you would like to reenable the DMA feature again (with CAUTION!), by merging (registering) the info contained in NODMA.REG back into your Registry.


4) Edit NODMA.REG with EDIT.COM (the default MS-DOS text/ASCII editor, located in C:\Windows\Command), by running this command:
EDIT C:\NODMA.REG


5) Change ALL these lines (you probably have more than one, depending on how many types of drives are installed on your machine):
"DMACurrentlyUsed"=hex:01

to read:

"DMACurrentlyUsed"=hex:00


6) Save your file, and then import (merge) it into your Registry, by running:
REGEDIT C:\NODMA.REG

This turns off the DMA support on all your drives, allowing the Windows 9x GUI to load once again.


7) Now start Windows by running:
WIN

Thanks a lot Hengis, but unfortunatly it didn't work, I get the message
Cannot import C:\NODMA.REG: Error poening the file
Cannot import HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ENUM\ESDI: Error openiing the file

If I type in EDIT C:\NODMA.REG
it brings up the notepad but nothing is it there, no letters or words.

When I type in REGEDIT by itself I get
REGEDIT [/L:system] [/R:user] filename1
REGEDIT [/L:system] [/R:user] /C filename2
REGEDIT [/L:system] [/R:user] /E filename3 [regpath1]
REGEDIT [/L:system] [/R:user] /D regpath2
then it lists what the paths do such as
/L:system "specifies the location of the SYSTEM.DAT file"
and so forth, I don't know if that helped or not.

As far as drives go, I just have the standard C HD and D CD-ROM drive
I also have a few things added to the autoexe.bat and config.sys files to load the cd-rom drive, sound card, mouse, and HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE
I don't know if this matters or affects anything, just thought I'd throw in all info I could think of.
Thanks again

Have you tried opening the file whilst in the correct directory > c:\windows\command\ ? I am not sure whether this will work but it may be worth a try...

Also, here is another suggestion:

boot to safe mode, hold the control key down while booting, select command prompt only from the Start Up Menu. At the c:\ prompt type in this:

REGEDIT C:\DMA.REG HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ENUM\ESDI

this will export a registry file called dma.reg to your c:\ root that will contain the DMA info for you Harddrives.

Then, type this:

Edit c:\dma.reg

change all of these lines:

"DMACurrentlyUsed"=hex:01

to this

"DMACurrentlyUsed"=hex:00

save the file (as nodma.reg - hit "alt" key on keyboard to get back to the file menu) and import it to the registry by typing this:

regedit c:\nodma.reg

Start windows by typing win and then hit enter on your keyboard

That one didn't work either. When I type in the C:\Windows\Command line it lists windows 98 and the copyright date, but typing in the regedit line is still the same. Same with the safe mode dos prompt only.
Anything else? Dont tell me I have to reinstall windows