trouble with entering Promise BIOS

[george]

I have an Asus K8V SE deluxe and was wondering if the following
behavior is by design.

If I enable both the SATA on board VIA chip (supports RAID 0,1) and the
Promise PC20378 RAID controller (supports RAID 0,1,0+1) in RAID mode, I
see only the BIOS for the SATA VIA chip (and I can go into its RAID
utility). However, I do not see the Promise BIOS.

I see the Promise BIOS only when:

1) I have the Promise controller in IDE mode and then there's no
possibility for RAID.

2) I disable booting from the SATA VIA chip - but then I can't get into
its BIOS.

Is this by design or should I be able to get into either controller's
BIOS to managae their respective disk arrays?

Thanks,
George

 

[Custom Computers]

Check under SCSI devcies in the Device Manager thats where you should
find the Promise controller

 

[Paul]

I have an Asus K8V SE deluxe and was wondering if the following
behavior is by design.

If I enable both the SATA on board VIA chip (supports RAID 0,1) and the
Promise PC20378 RAID controller (supports RAID 0,1,0+1) in RAID mode, I
see only the BIOS for the SATA VIA chip (and I can go into its RAID
utility). However, I do not see the Promise BIOS.

I see the Promise BIOS only when:

1) I have the Promise controller in IDE mode and then there's no
possibility for RAID.

2) I disable booting from the SATA VIA chip - but then I can't get into
its BIOS.

Is this by design or should I be able to get into either controller's
BIOS to managae their respective disk arrays?

Thanks,
George

The second posting in this thread, has some info from Tyan tech
support. Basically, there is a memory resource in the first
640K memory area, that limits how many option ROMs can load.

http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?threadid=29994&highlight=loading+scsi+bios

"Why doesn't the BIOS (Option ROM) for my PCI device show during
boot up? The cause of the problem is that in order to be PC
Compatible, the Option Rom space is limited to 128K. this is
true for any motherboard with PC compatible BIOS'.

In the common configurations, a newer AGP card (such as any
GeForce4) will require 64K of Option Rom space, so you have only
64K of Option Rom space left to work with for other devices.
Many SCSI , NIC (w/ PXE), IDE Raid and etc., can easily use
another 40 to 64K of Option Rom space for their needs.

By design the Option Rom should shrink down to a smaller run
time code after the initialization code has run. For example,
some Adaptec cards will require 32K to initialize. Then they
shrink down to 12K at run time; whereas some GeForce4 cards require
64K to initialize and never release to a smaller amount. Please
check with the device manufacturer for the latest firmware upgrade
or ask if they have a smaller Option Rom available. Again this
is a limitation of the PC compatible specification and not a
failure of the motherboard BIOS itself."

Do you have some other controller plugged into a PCI slot ?

Can you try a different video card ?

Apparently, on server motherboards, it is common practice
to disable option ROMs on controllers not being used to boot
the computer. An alternate management technique, is to plug the
controller you wish to boot from, into PCI slot 1, as the ROMs
presumably load in the order that PCI controllers are enumerated.
Option ROMs will load, until the space is exhausted.

I find it hard to believe this would be happening on your board,
and don't know if there is any tool that can analyse that
early, boot time problem.

Just a guess,
Paul

 

[george]

Well the problem is that the Promise contoller is on board, it's not a
PCI card. I have an AGP graphics card, a Belkin Pre-N PCI card, and a
Hauppauge Win-TV 500 MCE PCI card. However, I've pulled out those two
PCI cards and still have the same problem.

As far as Windows goes, I get an exclamation point in Device Manager
when the Promise controller drivers try to load. I wouldn't expect the
Device Manager to see the RAID if I didn't see it in the BIOS.

I would think you should be able to use both the VIA RAID and the
Promise RAID without having to choose one or the other. I am using 2GB
(2 chips) of Corsair RAM.

 

[JBM]

I have an Asus K8V SE deluxe and was wondering if the following
behavior is by design.

If I enable both the SATA on board VIA chip (supports RAID 0,1) and the
Promise PC20378 RAID controller (supports RAID 0,1,0+1) in RAID mode, I
see only the BIOS for the SATA VIA chip (and I can go into its RAID
utility). However, I do not see the Promise BIOS.

I see the Promise BIOS only when:

1) I have the Promise controller in IDE mode and then there's no
possibility for RAID.

2) I disable booting from the SATA VIA chip - but then I can't get into
its BIOS.

Is this by design or should I be able to get into either controller's
BIOS to managae their respective disk arrays?

Thanks,
George

When I set mine up I had to disable the via controller, make sure the
promise is
enables reboot and enter the Promise bios (F4 not sure) and set up that raid
array.
Then reboot and renable the Via controller and setup the array on that
controller.
Installed XP and setup was able to see both arrays.

 

[george]

So you don't get the yellow exclamation poit in Device Manager? Do you
still have the opportunity to get into the Promise RAID utility after
your set the motherboard to boot from the VIA controller?

What happens to me is that I no longer see control F. I do see the
BIOS for the Promise controller for less than a split second before XP
takes over and starts up though.

 

[JBM]

So you don't get the yellow exclamation poit in Device Manager? Do you
still have the opportunity to get into the Promise RAID utility after
your set the motherboard to boot from the VIA controller?

What happens to me is that I no longer see control F. I do see the
BIOS for the Promise controller for less than a split second before XP
takes over and starts up though.

I don't have a yellow exclamation on the promise driver in device manager.
But in order to enter the promise bios again I have to disable the Via
controller.

And I do have trouble getting into the promise bios like you say. I just tap
on
control F while its booting. sometimes I've had to restart the machine 3 or
more
times for it to catch it at the right time.

 

[george]

OK here's what I tried:

1) Disabled VIA BIOS.
2) Entered Promise BIOS and set up a stripe with two IDE drives.
3) Reenabled VIA BIOS and rebooted.
4) Tried hitting control F despite not seeing Promise BIOS with no
luck (tried this several times - how hard is it to get in?).
5) Installed Promise RAID drivers, but XP still did not see the
controller.

I'm thinking that as long as I don't see the Promise BIOS, Windows XP
won't load the drivers properly although uninstalling the Promise
controller in Device Manager and scanning for new hardware does make
Windows find the controller again only to have it put the dreaded
yellow exclamataion point there and a Code 10 that the device could not
start.

 

[JBM]

OK here's what I tried:

1) Disabled VIA BIOS.
2) Entered Promise BIOS and set up a stripe with two IDE drives.
3) Reenabled VIA BIOS and rebooted.
4) Tried hitting control F despite not seeing Promise BIOS with no
luck (tried this several times - how hard is it to get in?).
5) Installed Promise RAID drivers, but XP still did not see the
controller.

I'm thinking that as long as I don't see the Promise BIOS, Windows XP
won't load the drivers properly although uninstalling the Promise
controller in Device Manager and scanning for new hardware does make
Windows find the controller again only to have it put the dreaded
yellow exclamataion point there and a Code 10 that the device could not
start.

I can't ever get into the promise bios as long as the via controller is
enabled.
But I have them both working in XP with no problems.
Could be forgetting a step since it was a while ago I set them up
These are the steps I think I followed but I was messing around for hours
before I got it to work.
1)disable via controller and enable promise controller and reboot
2)enter Promise Bios and setup array and reboot
3)enable via controller
4)reboot with XP CD and and installed XP

I was doing a new clean install of XP

 

[george]

I already have XP installed on a disk on the VIA. All I want to do is
use the Promise for storage. I've got an array set up there. The
strangest thing is that if I go to IDE mode, the disks are seen and I
can use them and there's no exclamation point. When I switch over the
RAID and use the RAID drivers, that's when I get the exclamation point.

What version of the RAID drivers are you using for you Promise?

 

[JBM]

I already have XP installed on a disk on the VIA. All I want to do is
use the Promise for storage. I've got an array set up there. The
strangest thing is that if I go to IDE mode, the disks are seen and I
can use them and there's no exclamation point. When I switch over the
RAID and use the RAID drivers, that's when I get the exclamation point.

What version of the RAID drivers are you using for you Promise?

Properties says 1.0.1.37