Ok, i've never seen this here, it's only One's expirience. Stuff: MS-DOS does not support Ultra DMA HDD modes. Read speed is limited to 1-2 Mb/s while Win9x protected-mode drivers aren't loaded and the difference between modern UDMA 20-30 Mb/s are huge even on hi-end system. So the solution is to enable Ultra DMA mode in DOS. 1) Download latest copy of UDMA2 package for DOS http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/...dos/udma/devel/ it's compatible with any DOS version. 2) Include device=<driver name> or devicehigh=<driver name> to config.sys. U can use any .sys driver from package (i prefer UDMAJR because it's safe and fast) 3) Find IOS.INI file in windows folder and add UDMAJR.SYS (or another driver's name) to the [safeList] entry (to tell Windows to unload driver when booting protected mode drivers) Reboot and feel the 3-10 seconds speedup.