A7N8X, WD 120GB hard drive and Promise ATA133 Controller

[ron]

Hi:
Ive got an an A7N8X, version 2, and 2 Western Digital 120gb hard
drives.
I wanted to free up some space on the motherboard, so I just
bought a Promise UltraATA133 tx2 controller card.
Right now the 2 hard drives run with EZ-Bios (from W. Digistal?).

I installed the card and got the drivers installed (I'm running
win98se).
I transferred the 2 drives over to the card and rebooted. The
first item on the bootup screen was the Promise BIOS loading. It
detected the 2 hard drives and said:

D0 WDC WD1200JB-00CRA1 LBA 114473MB Ultra DMA 5
D1 WDC WD1200JB-75CRA0 LBA 114473MB Ultra DMA 5
D2 not detected
D3 not detected

IDE BUS Master Enabled

it then returned to the usual bootup screens, showing cpu clock,
cache, disks, ports, devices, controllers, irq's, etc.

then:

Verifying DMI Pool Data
EZ-BIOS Initializing...
EZ-BIOS: Hold the CNTRL key down for status screen or to boot
from floppy...
EZ-BIOS: Continuing startup...

(the above 4 lines are the same as before I added the promise
card)

But now things completely change:

"Starting Windows 98..."

(then a vibrating sound, but I'm not sure where it comes from)

Then I get:

Type the name of the Command Interpreter
a:>

and then everything stops.

Basicly, it seems that the computer can't find the 2 hard drives, one
of which is "C" drive.


Here's my questions:

1. Up until now, why was this "EZ-Bios" controlling my 2 hard
drives? Where did it come from? Doesn't the Asus BIOS have the
ability to handle hard drives that are 120GB in size?

2. Is is possible that the Promise BIOS is somehow conflicting with
the EZ-BIOS, and preventing the 2 disks from being seen?

I'm way in over my head with this. Could someone suggest to me
what is going on, and what I can do to fix it.?
I DO know that if I shut the system off and reconnect the 2 hard
drives directly back into the motherboard IDE port and then reboot,
both drives are recognized.

I'm also using the 80 pin cable as required , and I do have it
aligned properly (pin 1 with pin 1) .

My (novice) guess is that something is conflicting between the 2
bios's. (And the motherboard bios makes 3!!)

Any help is very much appreciated!!!!

Ron

 

[John]

My (novice) guess is that something is conflicting between the 2
bios's. (And the motherboard bios makes 3!!)

Any help is very much appreciated!!!!

Ron

Ive got the Deluxe version 2,0 of the motherboard and two Maxtors 120
gig and 200gig which came with a Promise 133 card. Im using it right
now.

Obviously you have to have the promise drivers installed.
Second you have to have the bios settings set to other or something to
boot up with the card. Ive got to take a look again what the exact
settings are.

Other than that - unless EZ bios which is on your HDs doesnt work with
add on cards or has to be reinstalled or something - it should work.

 

[BoB]

You or someone else used that damn floppy(cd?) to set up
those drives, it's quick and easy, the problem is that easy bios
has come back to bite you in the arse!
I would start from scratch! But then with those size drives and
that mobo I would be using Wxp/pro and NTFS, not fat32.
One option would be to move all my data to the boot drive or
have it backed up(hope you got a dvd burner)! Zap the empty
drive, reinstall on the promise controller, fdisk it(uck) from within
W98se. Use xxcopy to clone 98 over to the new clean drive!
Then clean the old boot drive! ETC.

 

[Dano]

I agree with bob, ez-bios got ya... go xp or follow his advice..