Can't get pic card to work

[Larry]

I have an old computer, a dell dimension 2100, 1.1 celeron.
I bought two new hard drives, that I want to put in the old computer,
the old hard drives are noisy, don't have enough room and are slow.

I bought two new Maxtor's Diamond Max 10 100 Gig. drives.

They don't seem to work on my computer, so I bought an adaptec 1200
pci card. The adaptec card is for Raid Array, the guy at Frys told me
I didn't have to use the Raid option.

I installed the Adaptec card, and configured the bios to boot
from the adaptec card. It did boot from the Adaptec card
the adaptec boot said it found the hard drive (the old one), Win XP started,
then Win XP said that Win XP and been terminated the last time
it ran, and did I want to start windows normally or start windows in
Safe mode.

No matter which option I pick, Windows doesn't start, the machine boots
again.

I know the hard drive is good, it is my old boot hard drive, I can
reconnected this
old hard drive to the motherboard, and Win XP boots fine. Without asking
me If I want to boot in safe mode.

Do I have to set up this Adaptec card in an Raid Array configuration?
Will the old hard drive not work with the new Adaptec card?

I want to boot from this old hard drive, then make a ghost image of it
to one of the new hard drives,
and then install the other new hard drive as the boot, and Ghost to it
from the image on the new hard drive
that has the ghost image on it.

Thanks in Advance,

Laurence

 

[kony]

I have an old computer, a dell dimension 2100, 1.1 celeron.
I bought two new hard drives, that I want to put in the old computer,
the old hard drives are noisy, don't have enough room and are slow.

I bought two new Maxtor's Diamond Max 10 100 Gig. drives.

They don't seem to work on my computer, so I bought an adaptec 1200
pci card. The adaptec card is for Raid Array, the guy at Frys told me
I didn't have to use the Raid option.

I installed the Adaptec card, and configured the bios to boot
from the adaptec card. It did boot from the Adaptec card
the adaptec boot said it found the hard drive (the old one), Win XP started,
then Win XP said that Win XP and been terminated the last time
it ran, and did I want to start windows normally or start windows in
Safe mode.

No matter which option I pick, Windows doesn't start, the machine boots
again.

I know the hard drive is good, it is my old boot hard drive, I can
reconnected this
old hard drive to the motherboard, and Win XP boots fine. Without asking
me If I want to boot in safe mode.

Do that - reconnect it to the motherboard controller. Leave
the RAID card in the system and hook a new drive up to it,
not the one you intend to make the boot drive later (if
either would be). After windows loads, install the drivers
for this card, and reboot, confirming that system finishes
booting without any "new" events.

Next connect your old drive to the RAID card, so when
windows boots it recognizes the controller having completed
boot the last time and had plugged-n-played it.

Do I have to set up this Adaptec card in an Raid Array configuration?

No. "IF" you were to do anything in setting (or REsetting)
it, each drive in your use would be a single drive span (not
stripe). That is the typical default assignment of such a
card, if you do nothing at all that is how it will be (and
was, since windows tried to boot).

Will the old hard drive not work with the new Adaptec card?

It should work fine. Windows was the problem in that it
expected the OS drive to be somewhere else (motherboard
controller) and didn't know about this new controller yet.

 

[Larry]

I tried booting as you described, but when I leave the raid card in
the system, it try's to boot from the Raid card and
I get:

Primary Master: No Drive
Primary Slave : No Drive
Secondary Master: No Drive
Secondary Slave: No Drive

And the system just sits there.
I even tried to boot from the floppy and/or the CD
but I get the same result.

It seems that if the Raid card is in the system,
that the normal boot order is "taken over" by the Raid card.

I will remove the Raid card and then I can boot from the old hard drive,
and then try to install the Adaptec drivers from there.

Strange, it seems that a few years ago, I had a promise card,
and it did not require any drivers, it would boot from the old hard drive.

by the way,
If I can't boot from the CD, or a floppy, (to run Ghost) when my Raid
card is installed, then, is it
impossible to do a ghost from one hard drive to another, create a ghost
image
of my boot drive to another drive, both being on the Raid controller.
If this is the case then it makes the Raid Card useless, as that is what
I did when I had my boot drive and the drive that held my ghost images.

Thank You for your help.

Laurence


Leave
the RAID card in the system and hook a new drive up to it,
not the one you intend to make the boot drive later (if
either would be). After windows loads, install the drivers

 

[Mike Walsh]

Try pressing Ctrl+A when the Adaptec info comes on the screen to get into the Adaptec card utility and disable the Adaptec card BIOS to prevent it from booting from the card. This works with Adaptec SCSI adapters, don't know about IDE adapters.
Did you remember to change the BIOS back to boot from the motherboard IDE port? If it still tries to boot from the Adaptec card remove the drives from the Adaptec card. It should boot from the old drive and install drivers for the Adaptec card even if no drives are attached. If all else fails you can manually install the drivers and enable the device even if the card is not in the computer.

 

[kony]

I tried booting as you described, but when I leave the raid card in
the system, it try's to boot from the Raid card and
I get:

Primary Master: No Drive
Primary Slave : No Drive
Secondary Master: No Drive
Secondary Slave: No Drive

I suggested putting a drive on the raid card.
Of course you also need to set the bios to use the
motherboard controller (give it priority in the boot order)
to boot the original HDD.

And the system just sits there.
I even tried to boot from the floppy and/or the CD
but I get the same result.

It seems that if the Raid card is in the system,
that the normal boot order is "taken over" by the Raid card.

So you have no bios settings you can change?
On any properly working modern bios, the bios is supposed to
look at the other (supported, which your onboard/old
controller certainly is) boot devices if it finds no viable
boot device on the "current" controller.

I will remove the Raid card and then I can boot from the old hard drive,
and then try to install the Adaptec drivers from there.

No you need to have the card installed, have windows detect
it.

Strange, it seems that a few years ago, I had a promise card,
and it did not require any drivers, it would boot from the old hard drive.

Win9x more gracefully overcame issues like this because of
it's DOS origins. It was an expected problem on XP.

by the way,
If I can't boot from the CD, or a floppy, (to run Ghost) when my Raid
card is installed, then, is it
impossible to do a ghost from one hard drive to another, create a ghost
image
of my boot drive to another drive, both being on the Raid controller.
If this is the case then it makes the Raid Card useless, as that is what
I did when I had my boot drive and the drive that held my ghost images.

You should be able to boot from all devices you could prior
to installation of the RAID card. Check your bios for
settings, this is a standard setting practically all bios
support (you'd be very unlucky if yours doesn't).

I don't know if Ghost will be able to see drives on your
card or not. I haven't used Ghost in a long time. First
things first, getting the system to boot windows while the
RAID card is still in the PCI slot, and with a drive
connected to it.

 

[Larry]

When the Adaptec card booted, it said:
Press CTL H to run Bios Array Configuration Utility.

The Adaptec Bios said

1. Create Array
2. Delete Array
3. Create/Delete Spare
4. Select boot Disk

Channel Status:
Primary Master: No Drive
Primary Slave: No Drive
Secondary Master: No Drive
Secondary Slave: No Drive

selecting 4. did nothing.

there was no option to boot from the motherboard IDE.

'-----

The Bios on the computer said
1st boot device Floppy
2nd boot device ATAPICDRom
3rd boot device: IDE-HDD
4th boot device: Adaptec ATA RAID 1200A

Someone else has told me:
"That controller is a Bootable RAID controller and according to the
adaptec documentation you can not use it for a simple IDE controller.
Raid 0, 1, 0+1 or JBOD is your only options for using it in your
system. If all you are intending to do is add them to your system I
would reccomend taking it back and exchanging it for a true IDE
controller."

It Looks like this may not work.

Thank You for your time and suggestions.

Laurence

 

[Larry]

It looks like this may not work.
Please see my previous reply to Mike Walsh.

Thank You for your time and suggestions.

Laurence

 

[kony]

When the Adaptec card booted, it said:
Press CTL H to run Bios Array Configuration Utility.

The Adaptec Bios said

1. Create Array
2. Delete Array
3. Create/Delete Spare
4. Select boot Disk

Channel Status:
Primary Master: No Drive
Primary Slave: No Drive
Secondary Master: No Drive
Secondary Slave: No Drive

selecting 4. did nothing.

You should not have to define anything, the goal was to have
the drive connected (just that).

there was no option to boot from the motherboard IDE.

Correct, the boot devices and their priority for (this card
vs. other drive controllers) is handled in the motherboard
bios, not this card's bios.

'-----

The Bios on the computer said
1st boot device Floppy
2nd boot device ATAPICDRom
3rd boot device: IDE-HDD
4th boot device: Adaptec ATA RAID 1200A

Are you certain you have not changed anything else? The
bios order you just wrote is correct and what would appear
on a properly booting (as you desire) system to the
motherboard's onboard drive controller. That is, with the
OS boot drive connected to it.

Someone else has told me:
"That controller is a Bootable RAID controller and according to the
adaptec documentation you can not use it for a simple IDE controller.
Raid 0, 1, 0+1 or JBOD is your only options for using it in your
system. If all you are intending to do is add them to your system I
would reccomend taking it back and exchanging it for a true IDE
controller."

Who told you, are they credible?

Normally a RAID controller that claims this support will
consider a single drive a 'single drive span' until it is
defined otherwise. Either way it does not matter! You
don't need to have the drive connected to the RAID
controller viable for anything at this point, the sole issue
is the motherboard bios boot priority, that it checks the
motherboard controller drive first, and finding that drive
with a bootable partition it will never have even checked
for one on a drive connected to the RAID card. However, if
the boot priority was wrong (arguably wrong, keep reading as
it's supposed to still work), and the motherboard had
checked the RAID controller for a bootable drive, it should
also hand-off to the other, next boot devices in the
motherboard bios list.

You do not need a "true IDE" vs a Raid controller. I have
at least 4 systems with raid controllers that boot the OS
drive from the onboard, motherboard controller. Actually
raid is so common now as being an integrated feature on
motherboards, it's probably more than 4 systems, I'm only
thinking of discrete raid cards.

It Looks like this may not work.

Thank You for your time and suggestions.

Laurence

You either have a motherboard bios setting wrong, your OS
drive is somehow logically damaged and wouldn't boot no
matter what you did (try pulling out the raid card and
booting the drive as you did previously to see if that still
works), OR your motherboard bios is *defective*, has a bug
which prevents it from working properly.

If it seems to be the latter problem I suggest checking on a
(motherboard) bios update to attempt resolution. The
typical motherboard (actually just about any board except
one with a flaw) should be able to do exactly what you are
trying to.

 

[Alex Harrington]

Raid 0, 1, 0+1 or JBOD is your only options for using it in your system

JBOD is just that - drives connected to the controller without being in
a RAID. The 1200A should be fine for what you're doing.

You have a buggy BIOS or a setting wrong...

Alex