boot problem; just installed promise ultra100 tx2 controller

[alfhead]

I've recently installed a promise ultra100 tx2 controller card into my system:

winxp pro
P4 3 ghz (not C)
Asus P4PE

and was able to install the drivers for it, and when there are not drives attached to it, the system works fine. when i attach a drive and the ultra100 bios gets "installed", my system hangs right before booting windows. it's not that it isn't finding a drive to boot from, cus otherwise i'd get a "press any key to reboot" message if there's no bootable drive. i'm just getting a black screen and nothing more after the bootup messages go by. any ideas as to how to fix this? maybe it's an irq conflict? this may be related, but winxp wasn't able to recognize the drive until i moved the card down one pci slot, from slot 1 to slot 2.

 

[Robor]

I'm confused... Did you install the Promise card and want to use it to boot or is this an additional card and hard drive that you don't want to boot from? Have you checked the boot order in your BIOS? If you're trying to boot from the Promise card you'll probably have to set the BIOS to boot from SCSI.

If you've got a AGP card installed you don't want to put anything into PCI slot 1. I had a Promise RAID card installed in the same motherboard (P4PE). Didn't have any problems with it but I can't recall the PCI slot I was using.

 

[alfhead]

i'm booting off of a drive that's on the onboard ide. i'm just putting some extra drives on the card.

 

[redhatlinux]

Looks like an IRQ problem to me. Check the IRQ that the addd-in card uses and make sure that its different from the on-board IDE.

 

[Marcelo Delaronson]

Hi,
I had the same problem as you. Winxp pro would boot without drives, would freeze with drives attached.

It has nothing to do with IRQ or slots. Problem is driver and bios.

What I did (without having drives attached to it). Go to promise website:

http://www.promise.com/support/download/download2_eng.asp?productId=11&category=All&os=0

1) Install Promise bios ver 2.20.0.15 from pure DOS.
2) Install XP drivers 2.00.0.42. You have to force the installation as the drivers are not signed.

After that, I plugged my drives (Sony DVDRW 500A and Toshiba R2312) without a problem. System boots normally now.

The issue now is how to boot from a CD, for example. I tried setting boot order Floppy > SCSCI > HDD-0, but it doesn't work.
I'm want to leave the IDE-2 on the mainboard for a second HD.

Hope it helps you,
Regards

 

[goodole1]

You mention update XP drivers. which drivers are you talking about?

 

[Marcelo Delaronson]

The Promise ones, for XP. Go to the Link mentioned above, download and update, as explained. Refer to my previous post.
Regards

 

[goodole1]

Tried it, it still freezes on the last of the post screen.

 

[1966]

Originally posted by: goodole1
Tried it, it still freezes on the last of the post screen.

did you also flash the bios on your promise card as indicated by Marcelo Delaronson?

 

[Dulanic]

Originally posted by: Marcelo Delaronson
Hi,
I had the same problem as you. Winxp pro would boot without drives, would freeze with drives attached.

It has nothing to do with IRQ or slots. Problem is driver and bios.

What I did (without having drives attached to it). Go to promise website:

http://www.promise.com/support/download/download2_eng.asp?productId=11&category=All&os=0

1) Install Promise bios ver 2.20.0.15 from pure DOS.
2) Install XP drivers 2.00.0.42. You have to force the installation as the drivers are not signed.

After that, I plugged my drives (Sony DVDRW 500A and Toshiba R2312) without a problem. System boots normally now.

The issue now is how to boot from a CD, for example. I tried setting boot order Floppy > SCSCI > HDD-0, but it doesn't work.
I'm want to leave the IDE-2 on the mainboard for a second HD.

Hope it helps you,
Regards

You not supposed to hook up CD-Roms etc... to a Promise controller, leave them hooked up to the MB, then set boot order to Floppy - CD-Rom - SCSI.

There is no real reason to hook up CD-Roms to a Promise controller anyways, your best having everything on a seperate controller so I had my setup like this....

Promise Primary - WD 120GB SE
Promise Secondary - Maxtor 40GB
MB Primary - 16x DVD
MB Seconday - CD-RW

It may leave you with an extra cable or 2... but performance wise it's the fastest and you can boot off CDs etc...