Boot HD on Promise IDE card sometimes not detected

[Dan_Musicant]

This is a persistent problem, but it doesn't happen all the time. I have
two PC's and 2 "identical" Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller cards. I
bought a second such card partly to determine if the problem was due to
the card or the machine. I found that the problem happened with either
card on this particular machine. I put the other card in my other
machine.

The machine on which I have the problem has an Epox 8K7A motherboard.
The problem is that 1/2 the time the machine doesn't detect the boot
drive when it's attached to the Promise card. Sometimes it's detected,
sometimes not. Sometimes it won't detect for 1/2 dozen boots in a row or
more. Of course, I gave up long ago and put the HDD's on the MB IDE
channels, and my IDE peripherals on the Promise card. However, it's not
my main machine and I forgot about the problem and over the weekend
rewired the machine entirely with the HDD's on the Promise card. Whoops!

Well, is there any explanation for all this or do I have to entirely
rewire the machine in terms of IDE cables?

I'm running Windows 2000 SP4, the machine specs below.

Thanks for any help on this - Promise support wasn't able to help me
with it when I called them about 3 years ago.

Dan
- - - -
Epox 8K7A mainboard
Athlon 1.2 GHz running at 1.4
2 x 256 MB Crucial DDR ECC PC2100 266
MSI geforce2 Pro 64 MB DDR
Santa Cruz soundcard
Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller

IBM 60GXP 60 GB HDD ATA-100 IDE (Promise IDE1 Master)
Western Digital 80 GB HDD ATA-3 IDE (Promise IDE1 Slave)
Western Digital 120 GB HDD ATA-3 IDE (Promise IDE2 Master)

Pioneer 16x 106S Slot loader DVD IDE (Motherboard IDE1 Master)
Iomega Zip 250 IDE (Motherboard IDE1 slave)
Liteon 24102B CD-RW IDE 24x (Motherboard IDE2 Master)

Mitsumi Floppy
Enlight midtower case with 300 Watt PSU
Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4

 

[Peter]

This is a persistent problem, but it doesn't happen all the time. I have

two PC's and 2 "identical" Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller cards. I
bought a second such card partly to determine if the problem was due to
the card or the machine. I found that the problem happened with either
card on this particular machine. I put the other card in my other
machine.

The machine on which I have the problem has an Epox 8K7A motherboard.
The problem is that 1/2 the time the machine doesn't detect the boot
drive when it's attached to the Promise card. Sometimes it's detected,
sometimes not. Sometimes it won't detect for 1/2 dozen boots in a row or
more. Of course, I gave up long ago and put the HDD's on the MB IDE
channels, and my IDE peripherals on the Promise card. However, it's not
my main machine and I forgot about the problem and over the weekend
rewired the machine entirely with the HDD's on the Promise card. Whoops!

Well, is there any explanation for all this or do I have to entirely
rewire the machine in terms of IDE cables?

I'm running Windows 2000 SP4, the machine specs below.

Thanks for any help on this - Promise support wasn't able to help me
with it when I called them about 3 years ago.

Dan
- - - -
Epox 8K7A mainboard
Athlon 1.2 GHz running at 1.4
2 x 256 MB Crucial DDR ECC PC2100 266
MSI geforce2 Pro 64 MB DDR
Santa Cruz soundcard
Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller

IBM 60GXP 60 GB HDD ATA-100 IDE (Promise IDE1 Master)
Western Digital 80 GB HDD ATA-3 IDE (Promise IDE1 Slave)
Western Digital 120 GB HDD ATA-3 IDE (Promise IDE2 Master)

Pioneer 16x 106S Slot loader DVD IDE (Motherboard IDE1 Master)
Iomega Zip 250 IDE (Motherboard IDE1 slave)
Liteon 24102B CD-RW IDE 24x (Motherboard IDE2 Master)

Mitsumi Floppy
Enlight midtower case with 300 Watt PSU
Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4

There might be a problem with power. For that many drives and other power
consuming devices, your aging power supply might not deliver sufficient or
quality juice. I suggest to temporarily reduce number of drives, stop
overclocking CPU and test repeatedly. That might produce some results.

 

[Harkhof]

This is a persistent problem, but it doesn't happen all the time. I have
two PC's and 2 "identical" Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller cards. I
bought a second such card partly to determine if the problem was due to
the card or the machine. I found that the problem happened with either
card on this particular machine. I put the other card in my other
machine.

The machine on which I have the problem has an Epox 8K7A motherboard.
The problem is that 1/2 the time the machine doesn't detect the boot
drive when it's attached to the Promise card. Sometimes it's detected,
sometimes not. Sometimes it won't detect for 1/2 dozen boots in a row or
more. Of course, I gave up long ago and put the HDD's on the MB IDE
channels, and my IDE peripherals on the Promise card. However, it's not
my main machine and I forgot about the problem and over the weekend
rewired the machine entirely with the HDD's on the Promise card. Whoops!

Well, is there any explanation for all this or do I have to entirely
rewire the machine in terms of IDE cables?

I'm running Windows 2000 SP4, the machine specs below.

Thanks for any help on this - Promise support wasn't able to help me
with it when I called them about 3 years ago.

Dan
- - - -
Epox 8K7A mainboard
Athlon 1.2 GHz running at 1.4
2 x 256 MB Crucial DDR ECC PC2100 266
MSI geforce2 Pro 64 MB DDR
Santa Cruz soundcard
Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller

IBM 60GXP 60 GB HDD ATA-100 IDE (Promise IDE1 Master)
Western Digital 80 GB HDD ATA-3 IDE (Promise IDE1 Slave)
Western Digital 120 GB HDD ATA-3 IDE (Promise IDE2 Master)

Pioneer 16x 106S Slot loader DVD IDE (Motherboard IDE1 Master)
Iomega Zip 250 IDE (Motherboard IDE1 slave)
Liteon 24102B CD-RW IDE 24x (Motherboard IDE2 Master)

Mitsumi Floppy
Enlight midtower case with 300 Watt PSU
Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4

Had the same issues with a 133tx. Final solution: Pulled out & thrown in a
drawer. Eventually replaced drives with SATA. I know that's not a solution
so much as surrendur, but I just don't have the time nor the inclination to
track down Promise's bugs. They don't seem concerned, why should I?

Hark

 

[Timothy Daniels]

By "boot drive" I assume you mean the drive with the Primary
partition marked "active" that holds the ntldr and boot.ini and
ntdetect.com files. I also assume that you can get the BIOS to
list the hard drive boot order for you, and that you can display
the contents of the boot.ini file. So...

1) Please list the *hard drive* boot order (including the PCI
controller card if it's listed there along with the hard drives)
2) Please list the contents of the boot.ini file.
3) Which partition on which hard drive is "active" and has
the "boot files"?

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Have you tried putting the Promise card in another PCI slot?

*TimDaniels*

 

[John Turco]

This is a persistent problem, but it doesn't happen all the time. I have
two PC's and 2 "identical" Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller cards. I
bought a second such card partly to determine if the problem was due to
the card or the machine. I found that the problem happened with either
card on this particular machine. I put the other card in my other
machine.

The machine on which I have the problem has an Epox 8K7A motherboard.
The problem is that 1/2 the time the machine doesn't detect the boot
drive when it's attached to the Promise card. Sometimes it's detected,
sometimes not. Sometimes it won't detect for 1/2 dozen boots in a row or
more. Of course, I gave up long ago and put the HDD's on the MB IDE
channels, and my IDE peripherals on the Promise card. However, it's not
my main machine and I forgot about the problem and over the weekend
rewired the machine entirely with the HDD's on the Promise card. Whoops!

Well, is there any explanation for all this or do I have to entirely
rewire the machine in terms of IDE cables?

I'm running Windows 2000 SP4, the machine specs below.

Thanks for any help on this - Promise support wasn't able to help me
with it when I called them about 3 years ago.

Dan

Hello, Dan:

I had a similar problem, for over a year. Here was my basic
configuration:

Tyan S1830S "Tsunami" AT mainboard
Intel Pentium III 600MHz CPU
Micron 1GB RAM
"Ultra ATA/133" PCI card (generic; Silicon Image chipset & optional RAID)
(2) Samsung SP1614N 160GB hard disks (non-RAIDed)
Windows Millennium

When I rebooted the PC (i.e., with the reset button or keyboard), it
didn't always find the HDD drives, at first (using the power switch was
fine, though). Several frustrating attempts were often necessary, in
fact.

Then, after many disappointing months of running at 900MHz, I finally
got my new PIII 1GHz processor to attain its full speed -- 1050MHz,
actually. I'd been unaware that it happened to be an "unlocked"
engineering sample. (Which is an entirely different story, for another
day. <g>)

In any case (pun intended), ever since this 150MHz upgrade, my computer
reboots normally, 100% of the time. There's a lesson there, somewhere...I
just wish I knew what the hell it is! :-J

- - - -
Epox 8K7A mainboard
Athlon 1.2 GHz running at 1.4
2 x 256 MB Crucial DDR ECC PC2100 266
MSI geforce2 Pro 64 MB DDR
Santa Cruz soundcard
Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller

IBM 60GXP 60 GB HDD ATA-100 IDE (Promise IDE1 Master)
Western Digital 80 GB HDD ATA-3 IDE (Promise IDE1 Slave)
Western Digital 120 GB HDD ATA-3 IDE (Promise IDE2 Master)

Pioneer 16x 106S Slot loader DVD IDE (Motherboard IDE1 Master)
Iomega Zip 250 IDE (Motherboard IDE1 slave)
Liteon 24102B CD-RW IDE 24x (Motherboard IDE2 Master)

Mitsumi Floppy
Enlight midtower case with 300 Watt PSU
Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4

Did you really need to mention the floppy, man? <G>


Cordially,
John Turco <[email protected]>

 

[Rod Speed]

By "boot drive" I assume you mean the drive with the Primary
partition marked "active" that holds the ntldr and boot.ini and
ntdetect.com files. I also assume that you can get the BIOS to
list the hard drive boot order for you, and that you can display
the contents of the boot.ini file. So...

1) Please list the *hard drive* boot order (including the PCI
controller card if it's listed there along with the hard
drives) 2) Please list the contents of the boot.ini file.
3) Which partition on which hard drive is "active" and has
the "boot files"?

Unlikely to be that when he gets a variable effect from boot to boot.

Much more likely to be due to a Promise bug.

 

[Rod Speed]

Have you tried putting the Promise card in another PCI slot?

Again, unlikely to produce a variable effect, boot to boot.

 

[Anna]

Again, unlikely to produce a variable effect, boot to boot.

Tim's suggestion is a worthwhile one. While we've rarely run into problems
along the lines described by the OP with that specific Promise card (by &
large we've found it very reliable), we have encountered instances where a
simple change from one PCI slot to another PCI slot corrected the erratic
functioning of a particular card. It's worth a shot.
Anna

 

[Rod Speed]

Tim's suggestion is a worthwhile one.

Nope, not with the variable effect boot to boot that the OP is getting.

While we've rarely run into problems along the lines described by the OP
with that specific Promise card (by & large we've found it very
reliable),

Clearly others have. Presumably the wart is system specific,
only seen with some systems, which explains how it got out
into the field like that and Promise presumably cant be
bothered running the problem to ground.

we have encountered instances where a simple change from one PCI slot to
another PCI slot corrected the erratic functioning of a particular card.

Thats normally only seen when two cards are using the
same IRQ and the drivers dont handle that properly.

It's worth a shot.

I said unlikely, not certain.

 

[Dan_Musicant]

:
:There might be a problem with power. For that many drives and other power
:consuming devices, your aging power supply might not deliver sufficient or
:quality juice. I suggest to temporarily reduce number of drives, stop
verclocking CPU and test repeatedly. That might produce some results.

I don't think that's it. There's a decent 350 watt PSU in there. Not
overclocking at all.

What I just did was reset the jumpers on the boot HD to master from CS.
It booted the first time, but that's no proof the problem's solved. If I
can't find the answer, I'll just have to spend another hour pulling all
the IDE cables and put all the HDDs on the MB controllers.

 

[Dan_Musicant]

On Mon, 6 Mar 2006 22:29:36 -0800, "Timothy Daniels"

:> "Dan_Musicant" wrote:
:>> This is a persistent problem, but it doesn't happen all the time. I have
:>> two PC's and 2 "identical" Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller cards. I
:>> bought a second such card partly to determine if the problem was due to
:>> the card or the machine. I found that the problem happened with either
:>> card on this particular machine. I put the other card in my other
:>> machine.
:>>
:>> The machine on which I have the problem has an Epox 8K7A motherboard.
:>> The problem is that 1/2 the time the machine doesn't detect the boot
:>> drive when it's attached to the Promise card.
:
: Have you tried putting the Promise card in another PCI slot?
:
:*TimDaniels*

Yeah, it's been a while but I'm sure I tried that. I could try it again,
and guess I will before giving up. It's sure easier than rewiring all 6
IDE devices.

 

[Dan_Musicant]

:>> "Dan_Musicant" wrote:
:>>> This is a persistent problem, but it doesn't happen all the time. I
:>>> have two PC's and 2 "identical" Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller
:>>> cards. I bought a second such card partly to determine if the
:>>> problem was due to the card or the machine. I found that the
:>>> problem happened with either card on this particular machine. I put
:>>> the other card in my other machine.
:>>>
:>>> The machine on which I have the problem has an Epox 8K7A
:>>> motherboard. The problem is that 1/2 the time the machine doesn't
:>>> detect the boot drive when it's attached to the Promise card.
:>
:> Have you tried putting the Promise card in another PCI slot?
:
:Again, unlikely to produce a variable effect, boot to boot.
:
I figure you're right there and that it's likely a Promise bug, one that
only happens in my Epox 8K7A machine. Anyway, I'm unaware that it will
impact things if I move my boot drive to the mainboard controller, which
will be my workaround if I can't find another.

 

[Dan_Musicant]

:
:>>> "Dan_Musicant" wrote:
:>>>> This is a persistent problem, but it doesn't happen all the time. I
:>>>> have two PC's and 2 "identical" Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller
:>>>> cards. I bought a second such card partly to determine if the
:>>>> problem was due to the card or the machine. I found that the
:>>>> problem happened with either card on this particular machine. I put
:>>>> the other card in my other machine.
:>>>>
:>>>> The machine on which I have the problem has an Epox 8K7A
:>>>> motherboard. The problem is that 1/2 the time the machine doesn't
:>>>> detect the boot drive when it's attached to the Promise card.
:
:
::>> Have you tried putting the Promise card in another PCI slot?
:>
:> Again, unlikely to produce a variable effect, boot to boot.
:
:
:Tim's suggestion is a worthwhile one. While we've rarely run into problems
:along the lines described by the OP with that specific Promise card (by &
:large we've found it very reliable), we have encountered instances where a
:simple change from one PCI slot to another PCI slot corrected the erratic
:functioning of a particular card. It's worth a shot.
:Anna

It will be my next move if the problem returns. Thanks. I take it you
work with Promise.

Dan

 

[Dan_Musicant]

an_Musicant wrote:
:>
:> This is a persistent problem, but it doesn't happen all the time. I have
:> two PC's and 2 "identical" Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller cards. I
:> bought a second such card partly to determine if the problem was due to
:> the card or the machine. I found that the problem happened with either
:> card on this particular machine. I put the other card in my other
:> machine.
:>
:> The machine on which I have the problem has an Epox 8K7A motherboard.
:> The problem is that 1/2 the time the machine doesn't detect the boot
:> drive when it's attached to the Promise card. Sometimes it's detected,
:> sometimes not. Sometimes it won't detect for 1/2 dozen boots in a row or
:> more. Of course, I gave up long ago and put the HDD's on the MB IDE
:> channels, and my IDE peripherals on the Promise card. However, it's not
:> my main machine and I forgot about the problem and over the weekend
:> rewired the machine entirely with the HDD's on the Promise card. Whoops!
:>
:> Well, is there any explanation for all this or do I have to entirely
:> rewire the machine in terms of IDE cables?
:>
:> I'm running Windows 2000 SP4, the machine specs below.
:>
:> Thanks for any help on this - Promise support wasn't able to help me
:> with it when I called them about 3 years ago.
:>
:> Dan
:
:Hello, Dan:
:
:I had a similar problem, for over a year. Here was my basic
:configuration:
:
: Tyan S1830S "Tsunami" AT mainboard
: Intel Pentium III 600MHz CPU
: Micron 1GB RAM
: "Ultra ATA/133" PCI card (generic; Silicon Image chipset & optional RAID)
: (2) Samsung SP1614N 160GB hard disks (non-RAIDed)
: Windows Millennium
:
:When I rebooted the PC (i.e., with the reset button or keyboard), it
:didn't always find the HDD drives, at first (using the power switch was
:fine, though). Several frustrating attempts were often necessary, in
:fact.
:
:Then, after many disappointing months of running at 900MHz, I finally
:got my new PIII 1GHz processor to attain its full speed -- 1050MHz,
:actually. I'd been unaware that it happened to be an "unlocked"
:engineering sample. (Which is an entirely different story, for another
:day. <g>)
:
:In any case (pun intended), ever since this 150MHz upgrade, my computer
:reboots normally, 100% of the time. There's a lesson there, somewhere...I
:just wish I knew what the hell it is! :-J

Yeah.
:
:> - - - -
:> Epox 8K7A mainboard
:> Athlon 1.2 GHz running at 1.4 (actually, I don't think it's OC now)
:> 2 x 256 MB Crucial DDR ECC PC2100 266
:> MSI geforce2 Pro 64 MB DDR
:> Santa Cruz soundcard
:> Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller
:>
:> IBM 60GXP 60 GB HDD ATA-100 IDE (Promise IDE1 Master)
:> Western Digital 80 GB HDD ATA-3 IDE (Promise IDE1 Slave)
:> Western Digital 120 GB HDD ATA-3 IDE (Promise IDE2 Master)
:>
:> Pioneer 16x 106S Slot loader DVD IDE (Motherboard IDE1 Master)
:> Iomega Zip 250 IDE (Motherboard IDE1 slave)
:> Liteon 24102B CD-RW IDE 24x (Motherboard IDE2 Master)
:>
:> Mitsumi Floppy
:> Enlight midtower case with 300 Watt PSU
:> Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4
:
id you really need to mention the floppy, man? <G>
:
:
:Cordially,
: John Turco <[email protected]>


No, I didn't have to mention the floppy. I just keep all that stuff
handy and posted the lastest. I actually don't think I'm overclocking
the CPU at present, contrary to what it says above. I also am not
running the very latest driver from Promise because I had a problem
after upgrading, so I reverted to a previous version. Don't remember the
details - I wrestled with that one about 3 years ago. Oh, I remember now
(found the clue in a database table I have): The new driver caused my
mouse cursor to jump around!

Dan

 

[Anna]

:
:>>> "Dan_Musicant" wrote:
:>>>> This is a persistent problem, but it doesn't happen all the time. I
:>>>> have two PC's and 2 "identical" Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller
:>>>> cards. I bought a second such card partly to determine if the
:>>>> problem was due to the card or the machine. I found that the
:>>>> problem happened with either card on this particular machine. I put
:>>>> the other card in my other machine.
:>>>>
:>>>> The machine on which I have the problem has an Epox 8K7A
:>>>> motherboard. The problem is that 1/2 the time the machine doesn't
:>>>> detect the boot drive when it's attached to the Promise card.
:
:
::>> Have you tried putting the Promise card in another PCI slot?
:>
:> Again, unlikely to produce a variable effect, boot to boot.
:
:
:Tim's suggestion is a worthwhile one. While we've rarely run into
problems
:along the lines described by the OP with that specific Promise card (by &
:large we've found it very reliable), we have encountered instances where
a
:simple change from one PCI slot to another PCI slot corrected the erratic
:functioning of a particular card. It's worth a shot.
:Anna

It will be my next move if the problem returns. Thanks. I take it you
work with Promise.

Dan

Dan:
Yes, it's the card we usually recommend. As I've stated, we've generally
found it to be reliable & problem-free for the most part.
Anna

 

[Timothy Daniels]

It will be my next move if the problem returns.

Also check the pins in the ch. 0 connector (the "Primary"
IDE channel) on the Promise card. The connector blocks
are mounted on their sides, allowing the pins to be
partially pushed back out of the block if a HD cable connector
doesn't fit just right. That happened to my PCI controller
card (made by SIIG) - one pin was pushed back - and there
were intemittent problems booting. It appeared as if one
pin had broken off. I pushed the pin back in from the back,
aligned it with the other pins, and it has worked again ever
since.

Also, please post the (3) items that I listed. In my SIIG
card, the card itself gets listed in the boot order, and who
knows how your motherboard BIOS handles that? Although
it's not apparent that is has an effect on the boot order of the
HDs, I always move it to the end of the queue so as not to
confuse the meaning of rdisk() in boot.ini . In any diagnosis,
it helps to know what the machine is *trying* to do.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Rod Speed]

Also check the pins in the ch. 0 connector (the "Primary"
IDE channel) on the Promise card. The connector blocks
are mounted on their sides, allowing the pins to be
partially pushed back out of the block if a HD cable connector
doesn't fit just right. That happened to my PCI controller
card (made by SIIG) - one pin was pushed back - and there
were intemittent problems booting. It appeared as if one
pin had broken off. I pushed the pin back in from the back,
aligned it with the other pins, and it has worked again ever
since.

Also, please post the (3) items that I listed. In my SIIG
card, the card itself gets listed in the boot order, and who
knows how your motherboard BIOS handles that? Although
it's not apparent that is has an effect on the boot order of the
HDs, I always move it to the end of the queue so as not to
confuse the meaning of rdisk() in boot.ini . In any diagnosis,
it helps to know what the machine is *trying* to do.

That isnt going to produce an INTERMITTENT failure to boot.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

That isnt going to produce an INTERMITTENT failure to boot.

How do *you* know? If all the components of the machine
worked according to specs, and if all the software and
firmware worked according to documentation, it *might* not
malfunction intermittently. But what works according to specs
or documentation, and what complex system works consistently?

*Tim Daniels*

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

How do *you* know?

Because I know how systems work, even if you dont, child.

If all the components of the machine worked according to specs,

Never said a word about specs, child.

and if all the software and firmware worked according to documentation,
it *might* not malfunction intermittently.

Never ever could bullshit its way out of a wet paper bag.

But what works according to specs or documentation, and what complex
system works consistently?

Never ever could bullshit its way out of a wet paper bag.

Effective fault finding is all about working out what can
produce the symptoms seen, and what cant, child.