ATA133 controller problems

[Goi]

Hi guys...
I'm posting this in behalf of my brother. He has an old Abit BF6 motherboard(440BX) with an onboard ATA33 controller, and he recently bought a Maxtor DM9+ 160GB HDD that comes with an ATA133 Promise controller. However, he's been unable to get it to boot up properly with the controller. During bootup, the controller is detected, the HDD is detected by the controller, but after that it doesn't work. If he plugs it into the onboard ATA33 controller it'll work, but obviously it doesn't detect beyond 137GB as it doesn't support 48bit LBA.

I've experienced similar problem with booting up on external IDE controllers before, but for the life of me, I can't remember how I fixed them in the end. Maybe I oughta write it down this time

Any ideas? I'm sure its pretty simple, but I just can't remember how...

Thanks!

 

[Lord Evermore]

In the BIOS, he should set it to boot to a SCSI device I think, or add-in controller, something like that. Usually in the "Features" options.

 

[Goi]

Hmmn, I remember I did have to mess around with the BIOS, but I don't remember changing my old BH6's setting to SCSI or anything like that. IIRC, I had to disable the onboard controller or something, but then again I do remember still using my onboard controller for something else. Its been a while since I last messed with external IDE controllers, so my memory's not serving me very well...

Anyway, he managed to partition/format/install Win2K on the HDD after he connected it to the onboard controller. However, its only being detected as 137GB(I think), and he obviously wants to use the ATA133 controller. Once the HDD is connected to the ATA133 controller though, the system won't bootup. It'll just hang there.

 

[Green Man]

Make sure that the BIOS is set to boot from SCSI or from Other Devices.
Then during the install, he needs to press f6 and install the drivers for the card when the message about installing SCSI drivers comes up

 

[Goi]

Well, if he sets the BIOS to boot from SCSI/Other Devices, presumably it'll boot from the ATA133 controller? What good is that though, when its unformatted and has no OS?

Right now, he deleted all partitions and tried again, but after he creates the partitions via Win2K setup, by right Win2K should tell him that the partition isn't formatted yet, and ask him what file system to use. However, instead of that, it gives the following error:

to install windows 2000 on the partition you selected, setup must write some startup files to the following disk: unknown disk

however this disk does not contain a windows 2000-compatible partition.

to continue installing windows 2000, return to the partiton selection screen and create a windows 2000-compatible partition on the disk above.
if there is no space on the disk, delete an existing partition, and then create a new one

to return to the partition selection screen, press enter

enter=continue


This message appears even though the partition has been created with the Win2K setup! What's up with that? Why is Win2K complaining that a partition that it created isn't compatible with itself?

 

[Trashman]

Not sure if i follow you

Anyway, he managed to partition/format/install Win2K on the HDD after he connected it to the onboard controller. However, its only being detected as 137GB(I think), and he obviously wants to use the ATA133 controller. Once the HDD is connected to the ATA133 controller though, the system won't bootup. It'll just hang there.

thats because you have to change to boot options to boot scsi first, it's looking for the hard drive on the onboard controller, and since it ain't there you have to inform your BIOS to where your hard drive is at.
then you go on as sayin

Well, if he sets the BIOS to boot from SCSI/Other Devices, presumably it'll boot from the ATA133 controller? What good is that though, when its unformatted and has no OS?

from the above quote i don't understand what you mean no OS, when you say that the drive has Win2k on it in the first quote.
And even if it was an unformatted unpartitioned drive, you can still install Win2k with the hard drive on controller as was stated earlier:
from spooky
Make sure that the BIOS is set to boot from SCSI or from Other Devices.
Then during the install, he needs to press f6 and install the drivers for the card when the message about installing SCSI drivers comes up

 

[Goi]

I'm sorry, my bad...a lot has happened since 04/11/2003 3:48 PM post. My previous post is what's current.
He did press F6, but after that, that series of events and that error message came up...its never happened to me before. Windows setup wouldn't even let him install on a partition that Windows setup itself created, because it claims its not Windows 2000 compatible.

 

[Green Man]

As I understand it...
He booted from CD and started a Win2000 install.
After the initial reboot during the install the computer wouldn't reboot from the hard drive.
He tried another install and pressed f6 to load the drivers for the card.
Then he deleted the partition that was previously created and created a new one, but setup wouldn't let him format it and gave him error messages.

I is setup now seeing the full hard drive? Or just up to 137GB still?

At this point I would Start the setup process again, installing the drivers for the card. Then delete all partitions and restart. Go through the text portion of the setup again and install the card drivers and see if it is showing the full hard drive space. If it is, I would try to make a new partition and format it. If it still isn't seeing the full hard drive, I would try to start setup without the drivers and see if it shows a partition. If it does, delete it and then start over from the beginning. The offset might have gotten screwed up when he partioned it as a 137GB drive and he may have to delete that partition without the card drivers to get it to work.
I hope i was clear, sounds convoluted when I reread it.

 

[Goi]

Your understanding is correct. However, after he delted the partition he has previously created, he created 2 new ones, 1 around 20GB and 1 around 136GB. Setup is seeing the full HDD to allow him to utilize all the space available.

By "installing the drivers for the case", I guess you mean press F6? If so then yes he has tried the setup process many times, but each time after he creates the partitions and tells windows to install to the main partition, windows wouldn't ask him what file system to use to format the partition. windows wouldn't even let him format the partion. instead, it would inform him that the partition isn't win2000 compatible, which I find to be very weird. The exact error message(cut and pasted from what my bro showed me, which he probably paraphrased from the setup window), is as follows:

to install windows 2000 on the partition you selected, setup must write some startup files to the following disk: unknown disk

however this disk does not contain a windows 2000-compatible partition.

to continue installing windows 2000, return to the partiton selection screen and create a windows 2000-compatible partition on the disk above.
if there is no space on the disk, delete an existing partition, and then create a new one

to return to the partition selection screen, press enter

enter=continue

Anyway, to refamiliarize myself with the Win2K setup process I took out an old 20GB HDD and tried installing Win2K on it. Here are the steps and screenies which I showed to my bro and asked him at which step was his screen different from mine:

Step 1 - Clean HDD not partitioned at all
Step 2 - Creating a main OS partition
Step 3 - After main OS partitioning
Step 4 - Creating another partition with rest of HDD space
Step 5 - Installing Win2K in main OS partition
Step 6 - Choosing NTFS
Step 7 - Windows starts to format the partition

He says he only got to step 5, step 6 didn't show up, instead the error message above did.

 

[Green Man]

I did a little checking, and Win2000 doesn't support 48bit LBA until SP3. Is SP3 included on the CD? If not, he'll have to slipstream it into i386. He could either burn that to a bootable CD, or boot from a win98 startup disk and install from a folder on another (fat32) hard drive.

 

[Trashman]

good find spooky, he could also try doing this no? download maxblast3....link...and set partitions and format using NTFS...if you set a partition of lets say 30gig for the OS and 130gig for whatever....that would also bypass the 137gig restriction with 2K....in theory that should work as well.

edit--here's a link to the Microsoft support article.

 

[Green Man]

A drive overlay would work. Download the PDF and look it over, there are some specific instructions for how to use it.

Go GB Packers...

 

[Goi]

Hmmn, I sorta knew that SP2 and older didn't support 48bit LBA, but I didn't think it would be a problem since ht partitioned the drives such that either partition was smaller than 137GB, and he was trying to install win2k in the smaller partition.

 

[Green Man]

LBA is done when writing to or reading the partition table, and the 137GB limit is on disk size not only partition size. You might be able to create a partition smaller than 137GB and leave the rest unpartitioned. Then after the install, service pack to 3 and convert the disk to dynamic to get the rest of the space available for another partition.

 

[Goi]

Well the problem now is that he can't install Win2K on the partition. And the weird thing is that he called Maxtor Tech Support and they told him that he could just install Win2K from the CD normally without Maxblast, but I'm gonna ask him to try Maxblast anyway...

 

[saimike]

hey guys,

i'm goi's bro ... its hard to get internet access since i'll have to swap hdd's so i had him help me post. but i figured i might help reduce the confusion here.

basically, his post on 04/12/2003 4:18 PM pretty much summarizes my situation. i had tried maxblast b4, and it succeeded in partitioning and formating it _once_. however, i wasnt aware of the f6 thing then so i wasnt able to install windows and get it to work. thus i abandoned the maxblast route for the win2k install route.

having said that, i have tried maxblast again, but it gave me a "disk i/o timeout" msg when i tried to use the graphical ver. the non-graphical ver will ask for a system boot disk (of the OS u want to use, and the 1st win2k boot disk wouldnt work). this is with the 160gb attached to the ata133 controller. i believe the win2k cdrom i have might not be sp3, how can i tell? the install prog does show the hdd as 160gb tho' ...

 

[Green Man]

If you have another hard drive, it should be simple.
First create a folder on C: called i386 and copy the entire contents from the \i386 folder on your CD to this folder.
Next, creat a new folder on C: called SP3 and download Service Pack 3 to this folder.
Now open your run dialogue box and type "C:\SP3\W2Ksp3.exe /s"
It will ask you for the target, enter C:

That will slipstream service pack 3 into Win2000.

Now, shut down move this hard drive to the secondary controller on the card, or if there is only one controller on the card put it as a slave to the 160GB drive.
Boot to a floppy, select start without CD rom support, and navigate to D:\i386
type winnt to start the install
press f6 to install the card drivers
delete all partitions and create a new one
format NTFS

It should work.

 

[saimike]

when u say "boot to a floppy", will anything do? i have ntfs so i'm wondering if it'd matter. thanks for all your help!

 

[Green Man]

If you have NTFS, after you have slipstreamed the i386 folder, burn it to CD. The boot to a win98 startup floppy with CDRom support and navigate to the i386 folder on the CD. Type winnt.exe and away you go.

 

[saimike]

Originally posted by: SpookyFish
If you have NTFS, after you have slipstreamed the i386 folder, burn it to CD. The boot to a win98 startup floppy with CDRom support and navigate to the i386 folder on the CD. Type winnt.exe and away you go.

i finally got a win2k bootable cdrom with sp3, but i'm still seeing the same error msg which my bro posted above, and i'm reproducing here ...

to install windows 2000 on the partition you selected, setup must write some startup files to the following disk: unknown disk

however this disk does not contain a windows 2000-compatible partition.

to continue installing windows 2000, return to the partiton selection screen and create a windows 2000-compatible partition on the disk above.
if there is no space on the disk, delete an existing partition, and then create a new one

to return to the partition selection screen, press enter

enter=continue

is it because my old abit bf6 just wouldnt recognize the ata133 controller or the 160gb maxtor? ie. could it be a hw issue?

just about everyone has said that "it should work" but unfortunately it hasn't, so far and i'm getting frustrated by what should have been an easy exercise.

thanks y'all for your help in advance.

 

[Green Man]

Make sure the cylinder limitation jumper is not closed.

Boot with the maxblast3 CD, wipe out all existing partitions and put the drive overlay on (hopefully you will have better luck with the new w2k CD)
do the install, and once again, make sure you hit f6 and install the drivers for the ATA card.

Let us know if this works. I'm really interested in your problem.

 

[saimike]

Originally posted by: SpookyFish
Make sure the cylinder limitation jumper is not closed.

Boot with the maxblast3 CD, wipe out all existing partitions and put the drive overlay on (hopefully you will have better luck with the new w2k CD)
do the install, and once again, make sure you hit f6 and install the drivers for the ATA card.

Let us know if this works. I'm really interested in your problem.

thanks for ur reply spookyfish. i'm trying to understand ur train of thought here. why do u want me to boot with the maxblast3 cd (ie. if it is to wipe out existing partition, i can do that with win2k?)? and what do u mean by drive overlay?

 

[Green Man]

Here's the problem, in the link that trashman posted it says that sp3 makes Windows2000 48bit LBA capable, but it's not enabled without a registry hack. So, during the install, you have a O/S that doesn't doesn't have the 48bit LBA turned on. Your choices are:

With the system installed and working on another HD, edit the registry to enable 48bit LBA. install the drivers for the ATA card. Partition and format the drive from disk manager. Ghost the image onto the 160GB hard drive. Edit the boot.ini file so that the O/S can be found at startup. If you're planning on taking the other HD out of the system, you'll have to set the BIOS to boot from SCSI or Other, and edit the boot.ini file to boot from multi(1)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1).

The second option is to do a clean install with a drive overlay. MaxBlast3 is a drive overlay that will translate 48bit LBA so that a non-48bit LBA aware O/S can see the full size of the partition. The advantage is that it might be the easiest. Although it didn't work for you before, it might with your new SP3 CD. You'd have to read the installation manual or visit the web site because thay have some rather specific instructions for Windows2000.

 

[Goi]

I think my bro wants to do a clean install rather than a Ghost, but I guess its up to him. The funny thing is that the Maxtor Tech support told him that Maxblast wasn't needed, and he just need to do a normal Win2K installation. I found some interesting links on large HDD support on Abit's website though. Here there are

160GB HDD support list
75GB HDD support list
80GB HDD support list

If you look at the 75/80GB HDD support, the BF6 is listed there, all you need is the "UH" BIOS. However, the BF6 isn't listed in the 160GB list. Would that be a problem, or is it just saying that the onboard IDE controller doesn't do 48bit LBA, and that an add on Promise card like the one provided with the Maxtor will handle it?

Also, does Windows XP support 48bit LBA? Or does it only support it in SP1? Perhaps it might be worth getting XP instead if it supports it by default.

 

[Green Man]

Abit would be talking about the onboard IDE controller. The ATA card would solve that problem. It's interesting that Microsoft says you can install on a partition smaller than 137GB, but he tried that and it didn't work. It's possible that the first time he tried MaxBlast, it wrote something to the partition table that windows install is choking on. It might be worth a shot to run the MaxBlast and clear any partitions, then run windows install and create a system partition to install on, but leave the rest of the disk unpartitioned.
Once he has windows installed, he could enable 48bit LBA in the registry before partitioning the rest of the disk.