Maxtor Ultra ATA/100 PCI Card and Windows XP?

[blahsome]

Hi, I have a Maxtor 45GB 7200RPM drive currently connected to my antiquated on-board EIDE (ATA33/66?). Windows XP is installed on this drive. I'm considering purchasing a Maxtor Ultra ATA/100 PCI card and connect the drive there.

Does anybody know if this card works with Windows XP? If so, do Win2k installation instructions for this card still apply for Windows XP, or will Windows XP make the installation a bit easier? I noticed the installation is a bit different depending on whether you will wipe out your current OS. I'd like to keep the current Windows XP on there, but am perfectly fine if reinstalling XP is going to make the task a lot easier.

Thank you very much.

 

[stingbandel]

yes, the card will work just fine under Win XP. XP will detect the necessary drivers for it.





Darno

 

[bacillus]

suggest you install the card without anything connected & let XP detect & install its own drivers, shut down then connect your hdd to the card!

 

[blahsome]

bacillus, so basically what you are suggesting is that

1. leave the HD on the on-board connector
2. install the card, without connecting any devices on it
3. boot XP and let it install the driver for the card
4. shut down and now connect the HD to the card

Is this correct?

 

[blahsome]

Another question is that, I have a secondary IDE HD that has Redhat 7.2 on it, but its LILO resides on the primary HD I'll be moving to the new ATA100 card. Will this require reinstallation of Linux? What if I also move that secondary HD to the ATA100 card?

Hope all of the above makes sense.

 

[bacillus]

<< bacillus, so basically what you are suggesting is that

1. leave the HD on the on-board connector
2. install the card, without connecting any devices on it
3. boot XP and let it install the driver for the card
4. shut down and now connect the HD to the card

Is this correct? >>


yes!
about the linux, it should work on the card but not with ata100 transfers. I'm not aware of any 3rd party drivers for that card in linux!
maybe someone else knows better!

 

[bacillus]

oops, forgot to mention that you'll need to set your boot order in bios to "scsi" before "ide" as the ata100 card is seen as a scsi device by windows or else windows will try to boot from any ide hdd that's connected to the m/board ide before the hdd on the ata100 card!

 

[benjamit]

i have the same card but win2k did not install the drivers for it

the card bios did not install during post

there were no hdds connected to it, just a zip

does a hdd need to be connected to the controller for the card bios to be loaded during post?

and if the card bios installs, will win 2k will see it and install the drivers for it?

 

[bacillus]

<< i have the same card but win2k did not install the drivers for it >>


you need to install 3rd party drivers for win2k but XP natively supports that card & will load drivers for it.



<< does a hdd need to be connected to the controller for the card bios to be loaded during post? >>


yes. if no hdds are detected then the bios will not install.

when you install the card, windows should detect it as new hardware & you should install the drivers from the floppy. when the system settings change dialogue box appears, remove the floppy & click yes to restart the system.

 

[benjamit]

oh that's not good

i thought that win2k would recogize the card since the on-board controllers are also ata 100

i don't have the drivers that came with the card, tossed out the floppy

i looked at maxtor's site but could not find a d/w section

could you link me the site for the controller driver?

i also looked at the promise site since the card is a rebranded promise controller but promise does not support it's products sold through another maker

what should i do?

 

[blahsome]

I installed the card as suggested. Windows XP recognized it as a Promise card, which is cool.

Now I have a problem. My front panel HD LED no longer works because I moved the HDs to this card. There is no single LED cable that I can easily plug into my card, but there is a SCSI hard-disk drive access-indicator connector (J8J1) on my motherboard that seems promising.

The question is, I cannot find any vendor that carries such a cable. I'm assuming a SCSI LED cable should do the job? Is there a place online that carries such cables?

Thanks.

 

[bacillus]

DEATH try looking on this page!

 

[benjamit]

thanks bacillus

i'm happy again...

 

[bacillus]

glad to hear you got it sorted!