Promise Ultra 66 and Windows 2000 Questions

[rickkipp]

I have read the posts dated 1120-11/25/2000, re Promise Ultra 66 and Win 2K Pro. Unanswered (4 me at least!) are the following:

I have the Promise Ultra 66 sitting here. However, I have been reading the tech support pages from Promise. They talk about problems booting into an existing OS (all MS OS's). They go thru symptoms and state that in Win NT 4.0, "Some translation problems are so severe that a clean install of the OS (Restore MBR, repartition, and format) will be the only solution". Plus, "When using Windows NT we recommend a clean install of OS to restore the OS boot signature."

Since Win 2 K is so similar, this has me scared. My primary HD is 53% free. My secondary has 97% free, and what is there is backup data only. I am ready to fdisk HD #2, but am unwilling to reformat my Main HD with OS and programs. One friend was concerned with the Promise bios upgrade, thinking it may also change my CPU bios, which I do not believe will happen. Data I've read, I will only get a 5% increase in HD speed from the ATA 33 currently running. I am not willing to take risks for that increase. However, the card is here, and 5% is 5%!

Any thoughts on maintaining the full integrity of my primary HD, without loss of data and without any need to fdisk, format this primary drive?

In addition, IF I can get this controller to work properly, Win 2K has software capabilities for Raid, which is why I did not buy the Fast Track controller.

All thoughts, warnings and suggestions will be warmly received. Thanks all, and isn't this a wonderful time of year for most of us. However, my thoughts are more with those for whom this time of year is quite difficult, and there are many of you out there. God bless, and good luck.

 

[Bozo]

Since Ultra66 drivers are native to Win2k, I don't see a problem. What you could do is install the drivers in Win2k, and then install the Ultra66. It should boot right up. If not, then to plan "B". Format and install clean.

If I remember correctly, I installed my Ultra100, let Win2k detect it and then installed the drivers.

Bozo

 

[grimreap]

I just bought a ultra 100 card and had no problems installing it onto windows 2000, even though I was expecting some hehe. All I did was plug that card in, install the drivers for it, then put my c drive onto the card and it booted fine. I was actually surprised because I had read somewhere that I would need to edit my boot.ini file and all this other stuff, but its working fine without having to really do anything...

 

[WhiteMouse]

My Ultra 66 gave me no problem, even if I did not install the driver.

 

[Raincity]

Just install the card,let win2k detect it and install the drivers reboot and make sure there is no resource problems with other devices and everthing is ok then remove the hardrives that you want to run off the ultra 66 in the device manager. shut down the machine and connect up your hardrives to the Ultra. Power up and let Win2k find the new drives reboot and your done. The only problem I have with the Ultra66 in Win2k is that if I try to format and reinstall win2k booting from the cd and if hardrives are connected to the Ultra, the win2k setup will never start even if I load the Ultra drivers right at the begining of the Win2k setup. I always have run the boot drive off the mainboard ide to setup win2k then move the drive to the Ultra after the OS is installed and the hardware is all set up with the latest drivers.

Rain