Help!, my Promise Ultra/66 card won't work with my nforce2!

[ferrarifreak93]

When I install the card into my abit nf7-s rev1.2 mobo and start it up, I get an error right before loading windows that says "ultra 66 bios not installed". What does this mean? Maybe I should just set "PNP OS installed" option in the bios to "enabled".

 

[Trashman]

"ultra 66 bios not installed".....that message means there are no hard drives connected to the card, thats normal.....since you have nothing connected to it, the BIOS does not need to load up.

 

[ferrarifreak93]

i only want to run cdroms and a zip drive off the card. Do I have to have a hard drive connected to the card for it to work?

 

[compudog]

I would check the Promise site or the documentation for your controller card. Some cards will ONLY work with EIDE devices and not ATAPI (like optical) IIRC.

 

[Cuular]

Basically that card acts and looks like a "scsi" card to the OS. Being an old timer that uses scsi in his systems, that's completely normal. If there are currently no devices hooked up to it, it won't load it's bios and waste the precious memory space. Hook a device or two up to it, and watch what happens. It's PFM (Pure Fing Magic).

 

[Trashman]

Not a good idea to run a cd-rom and zip on that controller....best off hooking those up to the motherboards ide controller.

 

[ultimatebob]

Do you have more than 4 IDE devices? If not, you would be better off sticking to the Ultra ATA 133 controllers built into the motherboard.

 

[lssanjose]

yeah the ultra66 is what it's supposed to be a hard drive controller. Keep the other stuff onboard

 

[madthumbs]

I had no problem using it with optical drives. With one motherboard, I had to remove the card until windows was installed before I could put it in and use it. I don't think it matters with the BIOS is installed or not for opticals..

 

[StormRider]

Originally posted by: ferrarifreak93
i only want to run cdroms and a zip drive off the card. Do I have to have a hard drive connected to the card for it to work?

If you want to run ZIP drives and CDROM devices, it's better to get a card based on the Silicon Image (used to be known as CMD) chipset. Both the Promise chipset and Highpoint chipset had problems using non-HD type devices -- however the CMD based card that I have has had no trouble using CDROMs/DVDs/ZIPs/LS-120 drives.

What's weird is that the Promise and Highpoint cards appeared as SCSI cards but the CMD/Silicon Image appears as an IDE type device in the Windows Control Panel.