Hack 63 Get the Fastest IDE Driver for Via Chipsets 
Optimize your hard drive parameters for their
best performance.
System boards that use
Via chipsets (http://www.viatech.com) come with drivers for the
many features of these boards, but one small program, known as the
IDETool by Via, is
often missing. IDETool is not a device driver but works with the Via
chipset driver. IDETool runs in Windows and lets you view and
reconfigure the I/O performance capabilities of your hard drives and
CD-ROM drives. If you are using a current AMD CPU your system
probably has a Via chipset, and there are Via chipsets for some Intel
CPUs as well. The System Devices section in Windows Device Manager
may also list Via devices to help you narrow down what type of
chipset you have.
A typical Windows and driver installation will not have recognized
and enabled advanced features such as the fastest DMA or multiword
DMA performance levels the IDE interface and drives are capable of.
Finding Via's IDETool is not easy, and it is not
provided with every version of Via chipset drivers, so you need to
visit the following URLs to find it:
IDETool installs as a small resident program, giving you access to
and ensuring the performance settings you want when Windows is
running. Figure 6-2 shows IDETool in operation,
indicating all of the possible I/O modes and other parameters of the
disk drive and the current operating mode.
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