slow hard drive transfer

i have an ibm deskstar hdd, one cd drive, one cd-rw drive and a zip drive in my computer.
recently, i seem to not be able to write cd's faster than 4x (from the hdd) when i have previously been able to write at 10x with no problem. i ran a speed check with the nero burning software, and it says my hdd is transferring at around 2 - 3MB/s, when it should be up around 15 - 20MB/s.
i have run a few of those "tweak" programs - ram managers and system tweakers - and i think one of them has set something funny in my system slowing down the hdd - what are the settings that control the hdd and where are they found? what should i be looking for?
all my hdd related bios settings are set to auto, and it has worked fine before - if its important, my drives are set up like this:
ide 1: hdd (master), cdrom (slave)
ide 2: burner (master), zip (slave)
this is really annoying - if anyone could help id appreciate it

1. RE: slow hard drive transfer
Moesdeal May-15-01 12:59 PM
In response to message 0

When you place a slower device (cd DVD ZIP tape) on the same IDE cable as the hard drive it will slow down the hard drives read-write speed. I suggest you either get an external (USB or Parallel) Zip, or Get an internal IDE card that plugs into a PCI slot and separate the Hard drive from the Zip.
Moe

2. RE: slow hard drive transfer
lbyard May-15-01 03:18 PM
In response to message 1

See if DMA is checked in Start, Settings, Control Panel, select drive, Properties, Settings. Larry

3. RE: slow hard drive transfer
crmere May-15-01 03:38 PM
In response to message 2

moe - thanks for your reply
yeah i read that in a few of the other postings too - but ive hooked up my g/f's computer the same with the same drives and it seems to be ok - thanks though
larry - thankyou, dma was unchecked and now i am getting 35MB/s in the testing - these deskstars go alright!