P4C800 Promise 378 and ICH5 - BIOS settings???

[kitrecor]

if this is obvious then i apologize but cannot make this board
work!!@#$

currently running Promise 378 SATA1 and SATA2 on RAID 0 no
problem...but system will not recognize any drives attached to SATA1
or SATA2 on the ICH chipset SATA controller!@# I have tried various
BIOS settings...run the Intel Chipset Utility...to no avail!!
Power..connections..jumpers all checked and rechecked...how do you get
SATA drives on the ICH to be recognized???? Help!!

kit

 

[BP]

Did you load the Promise Drivers yet? The controller will not be recognized
anywhere until you load the drivers. It took me a while to figure out that
you do this when installing Windows XP.
If you need instructions on how exactly to do it I'll post back. Nothing in
the manual about this. It's aggravating.

: if this is obvious then i apologize but cannot make this board
: work!!@#$
:
: currently running Promise 378 SATA1 and SATA2 on RAID 0 no
: problem...but system will not recognize any drives attached to SATA1
: or SATA2 on the ICH chipset SATA controller!@# I have tried various
: BIOS settings...run the Intel Chipset Utility...to no avail!!
: Power..connections..jumpers all checked and rechecked...how do you get
: SATA drives on the ICH to be recognized???? Help!!
:
: kit

 

[Bob]

Did you say you're running the Promise controller and you want to the run
the Intel too? It's either one or the other. No two ways about it.
What board are you using??

 

[JBM]

if this is obvious then i apologize but cannot make this board
work!!@#$

currently running Promise 378 SATA1 and SATA2 on RAID 0 no
problem...but system will not recognize any drives attached to SATA1
or SATA2 on the ICH chipset SATA controller!@# I have tried various
BIOS settings...run the Intel Chipset Utility...to no avail!!
Power..connections..jumpers all checked and rechecked...how do you get
SATA drives on the ICH to be recognized???? Help!!

kit

Go into IDE configuration and set to Enhanced mode.
This will omly work with 2000/XP, if you running
ME or 98 you have to use compatible mode.
In compatible you can run any 4 drives. 1 IDE +
2 ATA or just the 2 IDE
See page 4-11 in the manual.

Jim Manning

 

[jaslingremovethis]

Did you load the Promise Drivers yet? The controller will not be recognized
anywhere until you load the drivers. It took me a while to figure out that
you do this when installing Windows XP.
If you need instructions on how exactly to do it I'll post back. Nothing in
the manual about this. It's aggravating.

Do you mean that "press F6" message early in the installation?
It requires a floppy with a particular file--oemtxt. or something.
Where do you come up with that?

J.Asling

 

[BP]

:
: >Did you load the Promise Drivers yet? The controller will not be
recognized
: >anywhere until you load the drivers. It took me a while to figure out
that
: >you do this when installing Windows XP.
: >If you need instructions on how exactly to do it I'll post back. Nothing
in
: >the manual about this. It's aggravating.
: >
: Do you mean that "press F6" message early in the installation?
: It requires a floppy with a particular file--oemtxt. or something.
: Where do you come up with that?
:
Pay no attention to the fool behind the curtain!

 

[Data Wing]

Since you can't use the on board Promise Controller and the Intel on
board controller as they ARE mutually exclusive, I guesss that means
that I can't use my 4 SATA drives and my 2 ATA 133 HDD. right? I have
a SATA 160G Barracuda on "SATA 1" & "SATA 2". These are tho only
drives my board (Asus P4C800E-Dlx) recognizes. I have the other MB
ports labeled "SATA RAID 1" and "SATA RAID 2" connected to 2 SATA HDD
(same kind), and I have the PPromise ATA 133 80 ribbon (40 pin)
conne3ctor hooked to 2 Samsung ATA 133 EIDE 160G HDD's (one master -
one slave). The BIOS won't recognize them either. Does anyone know
what the maximum RAID 0+1 array is availble on the MB, and what the
compastable hardware connections are? I've spend $3,400 and only 2 of
my 6 HDD's are being seen!#@#!!

 

[Martin Rasmussen]

The 2 controllers cannot use the same raid, but they can be used at
the same time.

I have

2x160 seagate hd sata raid0 on the Promise and
2x160 seagate hd sata raid0 on the Intel, booting on Intel raid, this
is working just fine.

best regards
Martin

 

[kitrecor]

Thanks to all - I have resolved the RAID problem with my P4C800 UAY
Deluxe motherboard!! Some feedback to those of you who may have
similar problems...

My setup:
- ASUS P4C800 UAY Deluxe motherboard
- Promise TX2 onboard controller (has 2 SATA RaID ports and 1 IDE Raid
port)
- 2 onboard SATA ports (non RAID)
- P4 3.4ghz processor
- 1gb DDR memory
- ATI Radeon 9800XT video card
- Soundblaster Audigy ZS sound card

Problem(s):
- RAID setup not happening
- SATA (non-RAID) not working
- Maxtor drive not recognized

My Resolution (and again..thanks to all):
- installed ATI Radeon 9800XT video card in AGP
- installed SB Audigy ZS sound card in second to last PCI slot (not
the actual last one because ASUS says not to use this one)
- using a second working machine went to ASUS download site and found
/ downloaded the latest driver for the promise 378 controller, the
ICH5 install utility, the gigabit ethernet controller, and the promise
array management utility.
- I extracted the compressed folder and using the 'makedisk' program
put the promise controller on a floppy
- put each of the other 2 utilities on separate cds but didn't install
till much later
- Connected 2 SATA WD Raptors to Promise 378 controller ports
SATA_RAID1 and SATA_RAID2
- Connected 2 Maxtor 40gb drives to Promise 378 controller IDE port
- set primary Maxtor jumper to 'master'
- set secondary Maxtor jumper to 'slave'
- connected 1 160gb SATA Maxtor to ICH5 non-SATA port 1
- put windows xp cd in cd drive and rebooted the box
- during bootup system prompted if I wanted to boot from cd to 'press
any key' which I did!!
- after some startup loads I was prompted to press 'F6' to load 3rd
party drivers' and I hit F6!!
- loaded promise 378 controller driver for XP
- pressed 'F3 Exit' to end install (I had to reinstall windows xp
because of all the disk issues I had but I wanted to change bios
settings first)
- rebooted the system and quickly pressed / held down the 'DELETE' key
to enter BIOS settings for motherboard
- once in I 'ENABLED' the promise controller option
- I then set the promise controller feature to 'RAID' (this now
enabled the 2 promise sata_raid ports and the 1 IDE port)
- set the video settings to AGP/PCI and graphic memory to 256
(matching my Radeon 9800XT card)
- saved the bios settings and rebooted the box
- now saw post message that Promise Raid Controller found..press CTRL
F to enter bios'. I quickly pressed CTRL F
- using the options for the promise controller bios I created a
'striped' array (1) with the 2 WD raptor drives (now I had 72gb on
array 1)
- I then created another 'striped' array (2) with the 2 Maxtor drives
(now I had another 72+ gb on array 2)
- system entered asus motherboard bios and I went to boot sequence
options and changed the boot sequence to 'cd' then 'floppy' then 'TX
Array1'
- saved bios settings put windows xp cd in the cd drive then rebooted
the box
- when I saw the prompt to boot from cd I pressed any key to run
windows xp setup from the cd
- installed windows xp on TX Array1 (this took about 30 minutes)
- inserted the ICH5 chipset utility cd I created earlier using the
'latest' from ASUS download site.
- inserted the promise array management (PAM) utility cd I created
earlier from ASUS download site and installed PAM (tool to help manage
the promise arrays)
- inserted the ATI Radeon 9800XT cd and installed CATALYST (I later
went to ATI and found a new install version of CATALYST and I
subsequently ran the installer to have the most current version)
- inserted the Soundblaster cd and did the install for the sound card
- inserted the gigabit ethernet cd I created earlier and did the
install for the gigabit lan to enable the box to see the network
- configured the network settings to get on the internet (basically
did a network setup)
- then, using windows update...downloaded a bunch of updates..this
also took awhile.
- system functional!! oh my god....wow!

Some Problems:
1) First Problem was one of the maxtor drives was not formated during
the process for some reason. The bios wouldn't see it so I couldnt get
to it through the 'manage' feature. I then decided to use the
'maxblast3' cd I got with the disk drive and put it in my other pc and
used it to create a 'bootable diskette'.
- put the 'bootable diskette' in the machine and rebooted.
- maxblast3 worked and saw the unformated drive and I selected the
drive and requested a quick format.
- maxtor drive now functional...still don't know how this one was
missed during setup
2) Second Problem was one of the SATA maxtor 160gb drives I plugged
into the ICH5 non-raid ports was bad. I didn't know it was bad but was
determined through trial and error. What happened though was NEITHER
drive was recognized because the SATA (non-raid) ports are on the same
chain and if one drive is bad then the system won't see either drive!!
This was fixed by isolating the bad drive and removing it from the
configuration altogether.
3) Third problem...the install didn't start out exactly as described
above because I had so many interrelated disk problems and although
got windows xp installed it wasnot on a raid configuration so I had to
reinitialize the hard drives and redo the entire install.
4) Fourth problem..I really had a hard time navigating around the ASUS
website trying to find exactly what I needed... sometimes the servers
were down and it was just a pain
5) FIfth problem...ASUS support told me that the ICH5 non-raid ports
would not work if I had the promise controller enabled and set to
RAID....was absolutely bad information from ASUS...whoever I was
talking to did not have a clue.
6) Sixth problem....I really bought the 2 40gb maxtors to be setup as
mirrors to the WD raptors in case one of these fast drives went down.
The board is really not setup right for this even though it can be
done. To setup 0+1 which is striped and mirrored you should use 4
identical drives because you cannot really define (at least with this
motherboard controller) which drives will be mirrors...you just say
when you configure the raid configuration that you want to setup as
striped / mirrored and the rest is under the covers..so I figured I
would just use the 2 40gb drives as a second striped array..not what I
wanted but if I really want mirroring I might look at doing it through
software.

Conclusion:
- Machine working like a dream! Really screams with the 2 striped
raptors
- I have overclocked the chip 20%
- I am looking to use something (maybe Powerstrip) to overclock the
ATI board
- changed every setting on CATALYST to highest performance setting
possible
- bootup time is a little longer with the RAID

configuration
- thinking of adding another 1gb of DDR

Thanks everyone for all your advice!

Kit