Question about onboard Promise 20276 RAID controller

[imported_pratz]

I recently purchased a used PC from the forum. My question is, can I turn the RAID feature on the onboard promise controller, so that it will read my hard disks as normal?thanks.your help is appreciated.

 

[CalvinHobbes]

Which motherboard is it? It shouldn't be a problem, just don't configure it for RAID.

 

[imported_pratz]

its the asus a7v333 actually.the problem is I dont know how to turn off the RAID.where should i configure to turn it off actually?

 

[SolMiester]

Uhm, i think it treats IDE hard drive as hard drive unless you use <ctrl> A to enter controller BIOS and configure the separate drives to RAID, so therefore, you should need to do anything. But hang on, you said used...Oh, wait for controller to initialise, then use <crtl> A to enter controller BIOS, use reset.

 

[imported_pratz]

ehm.there is nothing happening when i press ctrl a.the only option is by pressing ctrl f to go to fastbuild utility or <esc> to continue booting.but when i continue booting, the drives are not detected in windows.or should i install the software 1st for the hard drives to be detected?and in the fastbuild utility, there are no option to disable the RAID part or anything.just options for striping or mirrorring and stuffs.

 

[imported_pratz]

bump..i need an answer kinda quick..no one really knows how to troubleshoot this?thanks..

 

[grooge]

you need to create a one drive RAID for the 276 to work. Then use the Promise drivers for the controller. This is how this controller work.

 

[imported_pratz]

wow..so stupid of me to not realize that.so..we can only have two drives max connected to the controller?

 

[frododies]

bump

Sorry I don't know about this, I never used the board in this way.
If you haven't, you might want to update the bios too. The one I had loaded when I shipped was a modified version to allow more than one stripe set on the raid controller.
It sounds like what grooge suggested is to hook up a drive, and make a JBOD type array out of it? Technically, you should be able to hook up 4 drives. The only limitation I saw when looking through asus' support site was that only hard disks were supported on the raid controller. The other ide controller would have to be used for any other ide devices.

 

[grooge]

Originally posted by: pratz
wow..so stupid of me to not realize that.so..we can only have two drives max connected to the controller?

IIRC, you can have more. When adding a newer HDD, you go in raid setup and create another array with one drive. I'm telling that from memory, I might be wrong too..

 

[grooge]

Wait.. IIRC, I think that you may have a jumpet that will make the controller to work like a normal IDE controller. Some board had it, others did not and needed to have the one HDD array trick. I would download the manual for your board if you dont have it at Asus web site and have a look at it. Or you can have a look at your motherboard to see if a jumper near the promise chip say IDE/RAID or something.

This controller was maybe the first one that brought RAID to motherboard as an onboard solution back in early 2001, IIRC. When I had to deal with, it was on a KT266A board, and yours is a "newer" kt333" so maybe the desigh was improved. So, I would first check for a jumper and if not, then creating one drive array could be the way to go.

 

[imported_pratz]

yup..mine had an ide/raid enable and disable.but when i disabled it, the controller doesnt seem to work at all.it doesnt detect my hard disks at all in windows.

when I installed a third hard disk, the promise controller would say this
"warning-fastrak does not detect proper interrupts,
please check your pci irq setup, and make sure the pc slot
support the bus master operations"

what do you think I should do?

 

[grooge]

Something in one of you PCI slot is conflicting with the promise controller. Try to remove the card one by one until you find the one that is conflicting. Then, try to move it to a free slot or change it with another card until everything run good.