By default, Windows 2000 scans all your IDE channels for IDE devices. This is great if you have just installed a new IDE device or if you constantly swap IDE devices in and out of your system. However, if the activities above don't apply to you, then all the scanning of the IDE channels that Windows 2000 does at start up is nothing more than a waste of time.

So, how do you stop Windows 2000 from scanning your IDE channels at start up? Well, first of all, you will need to know that if you disable the scanning of all IDE channels, then none of your IDE devices would work. Windows 2000 needs to scan and detect all available IDE devices in your system in order to use them. Therefore, we can only disable IDE ports that don't have any IDE device attached to them.

Here's how you go about it :-

1. Go to System Properties by right-clicking on My Computer or via the Control Panel.
    
2. Select the Hardware tab and you will see the screen below :-

3. Look at the Device Manager section and click on the Device Manager button.

4. This brings up the Device Manager screen.

5. Open up the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers device branch. Then you will see a list of all the IDE controllers and channels in your system. Below is an example of what the screen would look like in a system with an Intel 440BX chipset.

6. Now, select any one of the IDE channels, right click and choose Properties. Or just double click on the IDE channel. In this example, we will check the Primary IDE Channel.

7. You should then see the screen below :-

8. Now, select the Advanced Settings tab to get the screen below. As you can see below, the second port (Device 1) on the Primary IDE Channel does not any IDE device attached to it. Thus, the Device Type is labeled as Auto Detection. In contrast, the first port has a device attached. That's why the Device Type is grayed out.

9. To disable IDE device scanning for the second port, click on Auto Detection and you will see two choices on the list. Select None.

10. Click OK and reboot. Windows 2000 will now refrain from scanning that IDE port at start up and should load a little faster. Check the IDE channel's properties page again and you should see this screen :- 

• If you attach an IDE device to a port that you have already disabled IDE port scanning, the device will not be detected by Windows 2000 and will therefore not be work in Windows 2000. In this event, set Device Type to Auto Detection and reboot. The IDE device should now be detected by Windows 2000. 
  

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Thanks for your time and I hope this tip has helped you some! :)

Adrian Wong
Adrian's Rojak Pot
http://www.rojakpot.com/
http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/