problem getting promise card to work with atapi device

[default]

I can't seem to get my CD-ROM to work with my Promise Ultra100tx2
card.

When it is plugged into any ide slot with any configuration it hangs
the system during the boot (master - slave - either cable connector -
one or two drives, nothing works).

My system is a Pentium Celeron 333 MHZ, with three hard drives. As
long as the 40 pin connector is plugged into the CD-ROM the boot
hangs. The LED on the front of the CDRW flashes green, the display is
dark, with a dos cursor flashing in the upper left corner.

The promise card DOES RECOGNIZE the drive (a LiteOn 52X CDRW) when it
displays the drives in the flash screen. Windows ME tries to start
into safe mode when the CDRW is disconnected and the system rebooted,
but it will also start "normally" if I intervene at the prompt screen.

I updated the driver and Promise BIOS. BIOS was the one on the web
site that specifically mentions atapi device recognition problems.

CDRW was working on the motherboard's ide port. The hard drives are
noticeably faster on the promise card versus the UDMA 33 operation.
Motherboard is a pcchips 729. No other PCI cards on the system.

What should I try next?

 

[Eric Gisin]

Promise does not make IDE controllers, they make shit that only supports hard
drives.

Take the product back, it is defective. Buy only SiI based IDE cards.

 

[SimMike-]

I don't know if this is what you are doing, but I would recommend keeping your
hard drives on the Promise controller card and keeping your CD drives with the
onboard controller of your mainboard.

 

[Paul Atreides]

Promise does not make IDE controllers, they make shit that only supports hard
drives.

[cut]

Probably...
I have one U100 TX2 too, but I have kept the CD-ROM, CD-RW & DVD-ROM
drives on the MoBo IDE ports.

It took them years to (partly?) fix the buggy driver:

http://www.promise.com/support/download/download2_eng.asp?productId=11
&category=All&os=100

(line wraping)

It's still impossible to install a Windows OS directly on a drive
connected to a Promise TX2 card.

Do the integrated promise raid controllers on ASUS P4C MoBos have to
same kind of problems and lack of support ? I was almost ready to buy
one recently but the name "Promise" itself dissuaded me.

 

[default]

I don't know if this is what you are doing, but I would recommend keeping your
hard drives on the Promise controller card and keeping your CD drives with the
onboard controller of your mainboard.

Well this was more of an experiment. I got the promise to support a
larger drive and picked up ~14% speed increase in burning audio CDDA.

I wanted to see if I could gain more speed by putting the CDRW on the
promise card. In theory, at least, this should be possible.

The controller has been working very well with the hard drives.

As for the quality or viability of Promise cards in general, I can't
say - I did some thorough searching before selecting promise; if there
is one consistency it is that someone has something bad to say about
all ata controller cards.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Well this was more of an experiment. I got the promise to support a
larger drive and picked up ~14% speed increase in burning audio CDDA.

I wanted to see if I could gain more speed by putting the CDRW on the
promise card. In theory, at least, this should be possible.

No. CD(RW) has a different command set. These cards are HDD only.
Promise says that clearly.

The controller has been working very well with the hard drives.

Same here. Including an older system that did have a single HDD on
a Ultra 100TX2.

As for the quality or viability of Promise cards in general, I can't
say - I did some thorough searching before selecting promise; if there
is one consistency it is that someone has something bad to say about
all ata controller cards.

Yes, that is definitely true. And it gets worse if you use more
than one OS.

Arno

 

[default]

No. CD(RW) has a different command set. These cards are HDD only.
Promise says that clearly.

Paraphrased from the manual:
. . . it supports atapi devices of different standards without
performance degradation due to the independent programmable timing
registers in the controllers design.

Verbatim from the web site:
Will my Ultra100 work with a CD-ROM, or other ATAPI device?
Cause: ATAPI, CD-ROM, Removable Devices, DOS, Windows NT, PnP

Solution: Removable media devices can only work on the Ultra100 in PnP
OSs (like Win9x). In an OS like DOS/WinNT, that is not PnP, the
removable media drivers cannot see our card because it doesn’t use
standard resources. In a PnP OS, the Ultra100 drivers must be loaded
before the device will be seen.

Verbatim from the site:
Ultra100 TX2 BIOS 35.52KB 2.20.0.15 Windows
2003/5/6
Description Fixed cannot detect some ATAPI devices

Promise says that clearly? Then I must be dense - because I read that
the Ultra100tx2 should work with atapi devices. Am I missing
something here? Windows ME PnP, setup with the current driver and
flashed with the bios that should support atapi devices.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Promise does not make IDE controllers, they make shit

that only supports hard drives.

Some would call that an "IDE" controller.

 

[Arno Wagner]

No. CD(RW) has a different command set. These cards are HDD only.
Promise says that clearly.

[/QUOTE]

Paraphrased from the manual:
. . . it supports atapi devices of different standards without
performance degradation due to the independent programmable timing
registers in the controllers design.

Verbatim from the web site:
Will my Ultra100 work with a CD-ROM, or other ATAPI device?
Cause: ATAPI, CD-ROM, Removable Devices, DOS, Windows NT, PnP

Solution: Removable media devices can only work on the Ultra100 in PnP
OSs (like Win9x). In an OS like DOS/WinNT, that is not PnP, the
removable media drivers cannot see our card because it doesn’t use
standard resources. In a PnP OS, the Ultra100 drivers must be loaded
before the device will be seen.

Verbatim from the site:
Ultra100 TX2 BIOS 35.52KB 2.20.0.15 Windows
2003/5/6
Description Fixed cannot detect some ATAPI devices

Promise says that clearly? Then I must be dense - because I read that
the Ultra100tx2 should work with atapi devices. Am I missing
something here? Windows ME PnP, setup with the current driver and
flashed with the bios that should support atapi devices.

Oops, sorry. The vendor where I bought mine said it clearly.
You are correct, promise does claim that ATAPI devices work.

Arno