Installing a WD HDD on a Promise Adapter Problems

gogoguy · Post by **gogoguy** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 12:07 am

The drive in question is a WD 60 GB formatted with fat 32 with PM'
the Promise card is installed and working properly as it's shown in DM,
and here is my problem:
After installing my WD-60 drive (not jumpered) and cabled with a brand new cable to the controller card. But when I boot the card don't see the now connected drive,
and it won't complete the boot to windows.
Then if I jump it to CS, it recognize the drive as my WD-60,
and in both instances there is a massage about the BIOS not being installed (sorry I don't recall the exact massage), and it won't complete the boot also.
Ps:
There is nothing wrong with the WD-60 I've tested it, and it's working just fine, and the Rig boots without a problem when the WD-60 disconnected.

THIS IS MY HARDWARE
Asus A7N8X De LUXE-V2
AMD ATHLON XP 2600+ FSB 333
PAIR OF KINGSTON DDR 256MB PC2700-333 MHZ
PSU- THERMALTAKE WOOO9R 420WATTS DUAL FAN
GRAPHIC -ATI RADEON 9700\9500- 128 MB
HDD-1 WESTERN DIGITAL 40 GB 2MB CASHE slave, for Ghosted files,Programme photos and stuff
HDD-2 WESTERN DIGITAL 80 GB 8MB CASHE Master Partitioned, running W2k and WXP Pro in a dual boot canfig
SONY DRU510A DVD BURNER slave.
SONY DDU1621 DVD READER master.
CONTROLLER-PROMISE ULTRA 133 TX2.
RUNNING WIN 2k Pro and Win XP pro.
I've never worked with a controller card before, obviously I must be missing a step, or two, in configuring this thing. I thought that maybe one must change the jumper setting on the other two drives. What would be the correct way in doing this. Thx..

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 12:42 am

Welcome to PCA!

Why are you using a Promise card with your A7N8X? I would think that the mobo should support the WD out right without an additional card.

gogoguy · Post by **gogoguy** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 2:31 am

'Cause the slots are filled with 2 hdd and 2 disk drives, please reread my post a bit more carefully before asking, I took the time to write my question and include as much info as possible so that someone can give a intelligent answer and\or a intelligent question

The_Frapster · Post by **The_Frapster** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 4:52 am

Originally posted by gogoguy
'Cause the slots are filled with 2 hdd and 2 disk drives, please reread my post a bit more carefully before asking, I took the time to write my question and include as much info as possible so that someone can give a intelligent answer and\or a intelligent question

Man, welcome to the forums. No need to be so hard on him though, most Asus boards come with Raid and that would allow you to hook up another drive and use the JBOD set-up of the raid controller to support another drive such as you have there.

Why aren't you using your drive jumpered as master/single? Or does removing the jumper supposed to do that?

With that controller card, you don't need DM. The Promise card will load it's own bios up to allow for the LBA addressing needed. I am guessing that the BIOS error message your referring too is the one the Promise card flashs up because it isn't loading the on board bios because it doesn't detect the drive needing it(prolly your DM at work)

So why are you even trying with the DM installed in the first place is beyond me. Also, as far as the fat 32, why? Win 2000, and Win XP both support NTFS. You get data reliability, additional security, and if you need to recover data because of a bad drive, your success rate almost triples with NTFS.

Anyways, here is my opinion, you asked for it, reboot your system with that drive as master on the first IDE port on your system board. Use your other two drives on the Secondary port of the MB. Back up any data you need off of the drive. Power down. The reason your doing this is so that the DM can boot, and allow access to the drive in the first place.

Switch your drives, the ones on the secondary port over to the first one, and that drive over to the secondary port. Boot up and erase and format the drive using NTFS. Power down. Unhook the drive, and plug it into your promise card, and replug in your CD-roms.

When you boot now, you should have no problem with your newly formatted WD. Now place the information you backed up onto your WD drive.

LMK if this works, or helps you out.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 7:16 am

Hi, welcome to PCA!

Some suggestions:

1) You should install the driver for the Promise controller 1st WITHOUT A DRIVE CONNECTED TO IT. Boot into Windows and let it detect the Promise card, install the drivers, then shut down and connect the drive. I doubt this is your problem since it sounds like the Promise controller isn't seeing the drive properly, but it'll give you headaches later.

This will also confirm that the controller is working properly if it's recognized by Windows.

2) Since you don't want to boot from the drive on the Promise controller, you need to make sure that the mobo doesn't try to boot from it before the onboard controller. In your mobo's BIOS there should be a way to set the Boot Order. Set the order as follows: Floppy, CD-Rom, IDE0, SCSI (or you can set the 4th boot device to NONE instead of SCSI).

The Promise controller (or any add-on controller) is treated by BIOS and Windows as a SCSI controller (a concession to the ancient design of the BIOS we're still using in our computers).

3) You get "BIOS not being installed" message if the Promise controller doesn't detect any hard drives connected to it. If there's no HDDs on the controller then the Promise BIOS isn't required. So this is an indication that the controller thinks it's not seeing the HDD.

4) I would definately recommend you use the CS jumper setting - Promise controllers (most modern controllers) prefer it.

However sometimes you get a fussy configuration and need to specify the master/slave. KEEP IN MIND that on a Western Digital drive there are TWO DIFFERENT jumper configurations: one for "Single Master" and one for "Master with Slave". If the WD60 is connected by itself to the ribbon then you must jumper it as "Single Master".

5) Make sure you're using the correct connector on the ribbon cable. The Blue end MUST plug into the Promise controller. The Black connector is Master, Gray is Slave.

6) Try moving the Promise Controller to another slot. Sometimes you run into PCI IRQ sharing issues.

7) Try pulling ALL cards (except the video card and the Promise controller) to see if you are having IRQ sharing issues.

8) Try to confirm that the card is working properly by disabling the onboard IDE controller and booting with a Win98 Boot disk. Since you've formatted the WD60 as FAT32 you should be able to see the drive from DOS. Do a directory listing of the C drive (the drive will come up as C because it will be the only drive DOS sees). Type at the DOS prompt:

c:
dir

If you can see the drive and don't get an error then the card/drive combo is working fine and it's definately some sort of configuration issue with the mobo.

9) All else fails, try moving the new WD60 to the onboard controller and move one of the CD-Rom drives to the Promise controller. That might work around the issue. REMEMBER to jumper the WD60 properly if it's sharing a ribbon with another device on the onboard controller. There is no problem making a HDD a slave BTW.

Let us know if any of this helps....

FRAPSTER: He does have a valid reason to want to add a second controller (he wants to add a 3rd drive and he's out of IDE channels).

I certainly agree that most people should be using NTFS (especially if you do video work since FAT32 has a 4Gb file size limit) but he may have a valid reason to use FAT32. There are a few:

1) If it's mainly a gaming system and performance is everything to you, then FAT32 is SLIGHTLY faster than NTFS. NTFS brings a lot of excess baggage with it that affects performance (security, indexing). For a single user who's not on a corporate LAN, the security features are meaningless and File Indexing is a performance hog (although it can be disabled).

2) You may need to be able to access the drive from a Win98 system or a dual boot Win98/XP system.

gogoguy · Post by **gogoguy** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 12:25 pm

FlyingPenguin.
old Fart although vary humble, doesn't do you justice!
Thanks for the advice you've covered everything connected to this issue,
and I totally agree with all you've said including the NTFS set up,
but in my opinion "as I think of it today" NTFS is a useless hog, in today modern computing
a simple advice for those whom are concerned of hackers,
"don't install your OS in C:\" 'cause,
most hackers and malicious intender's write they ware to look for c:\
and also Ghost your drives, it's the best thing I've ever learned, when done properly it never fails!
Your level headed advice is a fine example of how to answer someone in a proper and clear manner.
I'm very impressed,
I've copied and printed it.
I'll study and try your variables, and post back the results,
so that others may, if needed, learn from it.

The_Frapster · Post by **The_Frapster** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 2:56 pm

I didn't know that about performance, it was never brought up when talked about the differneces between fat32 and ntfs. Although, you can turn the indexing service off, so that would be one hog out the proverbial window.

Anyways, I think the problem he is having is with the DM software he has loaded onto the HD in the first place. When the promise controller boots up, and is looking for a drive, the DM software formats the drive to look like a 4gb volume so it is compatible with your existing bios to boot from.

In the very least, if he wants to put fat32 back on there, move the drive to where you can boot from it, and then pull the information off of it. And then move it back to the promise controller and reformat it fat32. You may have to format it before moving it, so windows when it scans your drive upon start-up won't have issues with it.

Good luck.

gogoguy · Post by **gogoguy** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 5:57 pm

Frapster, thx for your attempt to help, but I think we misunderstood each other about the infamous DM thing
it was meant to be short for Device Manager that's all, and not some kind of software, if you read my post it only says: The Promise card is installed and working properly as it's shown in DM, meaning Device Manager, and this has caused you to think about my problem in a "different way". I didn't think or know that it could mean some other process or software, but please let me know what do you mean by DM, I couldn't understand what you meant by your short for DM I was and still am a bit baffled.
And just to clear things a little more, the Ultra 100 TX2 Promise host adapter is installed with the Promise technology Driver "only" It came bundled with the card, and a floppy containing the driver for it.(and "NO" DM software have been installed.)

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 9:00 pm

I'm the old fart around here because I still believe in taking the time to type out explanations and directions in clear common English and not butchered l33t Internet slang

Another thing GoGo. I've used that card myself as a secondary IDE contoller. I've had issues with Promise cards that I've solved by updating to the latest Promise BIOS and driver.

Some Promise cards are VERY fussy about matching the BIOS version to the driver version. If you update the driver you often need to update the BIOS too.

You should also make sure you have the latest BIOS installed in your mobo.

Yes I always Ghost the boot partition after the system is setup properly and stable. Moreover I also like to divide a drive up into a lot of smaller partitions instead of one big partition. There's a lot of reasons for this that I mention here:

http://www.pcabusers.net/forums/showthr ... post182444

I backup my Boot partition once a month at least.

I'm not sure how valid your "don't install Windows on drive C" idea is. Granted there are some sloppy coders out there, but most hackers/programmers know enough to use system variables instead of absolute drive paths. Can't hurt though, and Win2K and XP don't care what drive letter Windows is on.

On gaming systems I generally go with FAT32. On anything else I recommend NTFS only because of the 4Gb max file size limit in FAT32 and some apps are starting to make use of VERY large files, not to mention that for video editing it's a must.

For example, if you make DVDs you would definately want your DVD burning software to use an NTFS partition for caching ISOs since a full size DVD ISO file will exceed the 4Gb max file size limit of FAT32.

Let us know how you make out.

smb · Post by **smb** » Wed Jun 16, 2004 9:27 pm

I use a Promise card. I think your running into problems not jumpering the hd to master.

So here is my suggestion. Move your current boot drive to the promise controller and boot up your system. In actuality, this would probably be better for your drrive because it wouldn't be slowed down having a slave drive attached on the same channel. If your system boot fine, attach the 60gig to the onboard controller and boot up your system. You also didn't state what your bios boot config was either. If you have your bios set up to boot from SCSI you will never get into windows with your 60gig attached.

In any case, jumper your hd to master.

The_Frapster · Post by **The_Frapster** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 4:25 am

There is for WD and maxtor a software program, called by different names, but the first name for it was Disk Manager. This is a bios overlay file that would load at system startup and allow your system to use more then the GB limit is on your system IDE bios.

Sorry for the confusion there....if your problem was the DM then my explanation would have made more sense.

LOL, hope you get it working.

gogoguy · Post by **gogoguy** » Thu Jun 17, 2004 10:41 am

FlyingPenguin Frapster and now smb Thank you for your ideas and advice and particularly FlyingPenguin,
I like to thank you for, most of all generous advice,
deep knowledge of the subject,
and writing skills as well. This has been a really nice experience for me,
I say "has" 'cause it seem that this problem is resolved now.
the Promise Adapter didn't like the PCI slot it was in,
and by just changing it to a new position,
it fired up perfectly and recognized the WD 60 GB,
and now it's registered and lettered properly.
I'll partition it to 3 parts.
one of 30-15 and 15 'cause,
in one of the 15 GB part, I'll format it to linux with PM 8.0,
I'm thinking to install RedHat (whoo! that thing is 7 disc's big) and maybe I'll learn to play with it for a while!!

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 4:37 am

Glad you got it working. Thanks for posting a followup - it helps others.

The_Frapster · Post by **The_Frapster** » Fri Jun 18, 2004 9:05 am

LOL, yes sorry for going down another track there, but hey, at least I tried.