K7S5A and Promise IDE Controller

The Sentinel · August 13th, 2002, 05:28 PM

Hi guys,
I've got a real problem here. I'm wanting to install a third hard drive on my machine. So I boght a Western Digital 80Gigs HDD with 2MB Cache and 7200rpm (type's WD800BB).
Now to do this I also bought an IDE Controller (Promise Ultra 100 Tx2).
My System:
ECS K7S5A
Athlon Thunderbird C 1400MHz
512MB DDR RAM
1x 40 GB HDD WD 7200rpm and 2MB cache
1x 30 GB HDD WD 5400rpm and also 2MB Cache
1x Hercules 3d Prophet GeForce 2MX
1x LAN Card (think it's 3com)
1x firewire controller
then normal cd rom and a cd rw

So now to my problem:
I installed the whole thing. Having set in the controller I booted up windows (btw: Windows XP Pro) to install the drivers and see if it accepts it correctly. Windows already installed the driver - but I took the one from the driver disk as adviced in the manual. The I shut down my machine again for plugging in the HDD.
Now my PC boots up till the part where the IDE Controller BIOS is detecting HDDs and is booting up itself.
Now my Controller BIOS says: "BIOS is not loaded as there are no drives attached". Then windows boots on without the new harddrive.
I've already tried lots of things.

changed jumper setting for the HDD
I tried different PCI slots
Tried my old HDD to work with the Controller
Also Got the latest Award Mainboard BIOS

The Hard Disk also is not the problem it works alright - I've already checked that by plugging it to the onboard IDE controller.
Now I hope I've described my problem well enough.
Please I hope someone can help me.
Thanks in Advance to all of you who have got any clue what to do!

MaxVal · August 13th, 2002, 05:40 PM

Welcome to TechIMO!
If the disk works OK on the on-board controllers, it sounds to me as if the Promise card is NG.
Be aware, W.D. disks are a little different than others in that they will not be detected properly when set as a master with no slave present.
MAX

The Sentinel · August 13th, 2002, 05:48 PM

Hi MaxVal,
well my the problem with the WD HDDs is something I'm used to. I already checked the drive jumpered as Master, Slave, Cable Select and with no jumper.
When jumpered as Master or Slave the HDD is not detected and Windows is booting then.
When the HDD is jumpered to Cable Select or no jumper then the BOOT procedure hangs up after the message that the controller BIOS is not loaded.
Well your suggest about the controller havin a malfunction: I'm going to check that tomorrow afternoon by putting it into another PC.
Thanks for your fast reply

BFlurie · August 14th, 2002, 09:24 AM

Do you get a screen before Windows loads showing the cards BIOS screen & settings? If not, the cards BIOS isn't loading & the box doesn't know it's there. You must get to a point where the card's BIOS shows up (gets installed in mem) during bootup. Try to get into Windows via an IDE drive with at least 1 drive in the Promise card & see if Windows shows the card & its resources in device manager (DM). If so, go thru the "update driver" option in DM even if it just reinstalls the same driver & reboot.

The Sentinel · August 14th, 2002, 11:03 AM

Hi BFlurie,
well I get the screens as followed:
First the Award Modular BIOS Screen shows up, detecting my normal HDDs and CDRs.
Then the boot goes on showing a message: "Ultra 100 TX2 Promise Controller Copyright...."and so on.
Then the word detecting appears and a cursor is turning round behind it.
After that it says: "the BIOS was not loaded as there are no drives attached." Then the Windows XP Boot screen appears.

If I jumper my HDD as Master or Slave the boot sequence just goes on with the message mentioned above. But if I set the jumper for cable select or if I leave it out it shows the message: "D0 couldn't detect
D1 couldn't detect
D2.....
D3......"
And the boot sequence hangs up without loading windows.

If I continue booting with my one HDD set as Master on the Promise Controller I get the Controller in the Windows DM, but not the Drive. So well I'm now going to try your advice. I'll write more in a few mins.

So back again:
No improvement. Any other advices? Could it be that this is not a windows based problem but one on a lower level of the system?
So please has anyone moresuggestions?!

MaxVal · August 14th, 2002, 12:10 PM

Just thought of a possibility...
W.D. had a problem with an updated firmware a while back. A quick and dirty solution was to disable the drive-reset by opening the pin#1 wire.
Do you have an old cable that you would be willing to experiment on? If so, give it a try!
MAX

BFlurie · August 14th, 2002, 12:20 PM

Some main BIOSs have an "onboard PCI-IDE controller" dialog that you can manipulate, tho it should be set to "auto" & work correctly as mine does. If yours does & is set to auto, you might try "hard" setting it to the resources you want.

Can you get into (F1 or some key) the controllers BIOS setup to check its options?

The Sentinel · August 14th, 2002, 01:40 PM

Well ok guys I going to check that with the pin 1.
And that with the Controller dialogue in the main BIOS: I don't have such a thing. I just can put the onboard IDE Controller on or off.
So more when I tried the thing with the cable.

Ok I've tried your advice with the cable but it didn't work. I think it'S not the HDD as it is brandnew!

P.S. I can'T access the Controller's BIOS and I don't think it's got one!? In the manual there's nothing like a Controller's BIOS Menue described.

Meanwhile I've just send an support request directly on the Elitegroup website. I hope the get me something new and useful.
So if there aren't any new suggestions or any guys with the same problem I'm going to post again as soon as I got an answer from Elitegroup.

MaxVal · August 14th, 2002, 02:45 PM

Sorry it didn't work.
Could you move one of the other disks to the promise card?
If that doesn’t work it would give additional credence that the card is bad.
Next step would be trying it in another machine with a different disk.
A no go here would indicate a replacement card.
MAX

The Sentinel · August 14th, 2002, 05:22 PM

If I move another disk to the controller that doesn't effect anything either.
I've already checked the conrtoller on another machine: It works perfectly alright.
So theres no prob with the controller or the HDD.