Some minor problems with Promise PCI ATA/100 card (just bought it)

[Tib]

Hi there. Thanks for looking at my thread

I've been having problems trying to integrate my 80 gig drives. You can look at this thread for those problems (that's not what this thread is about):

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=32&threadid=337476

BTW, for your info, I've decided to sell that computer...maybe the reason was the RAID, maybe the mobo - I really don't know. All's I know is that it's gone, and I decided to buy an ATA/100 card, put it in my fileserver, and use that.

OK, so I bought that promise ATA/100 card right here from someone on anandtech Friday, and it already arrived today Monday. Yippee! I was so happy.

The card seems to work fine - it detects drives and everything, fairly quickly.

The only problem I face now is that the promise card is hogging all of the low drive letters!

I wonder if there's a way to get rid of this? Is the only way to fix it is to setup my 20 gig 7200 rpm (main hard drive) to the ATA/100 card? I currently have my main drive plugged into the motherboard.

My computer bios doesn't wanna boot off e: or d:, even if I tell it to. It only wants to boot off of C:. The ATA/100 card and the 80 gig drives are hogging c: and d:, and my "main drive" is bumped up from c: to e:! Is there a way to change that?

If you guys can figure out a way, please reply here, or PM me, or email me at tambrus@yahoo.com. Any help or idea's would be appreciated.

I really don't want to have to install my 20 gig 7200 rpm drive on my ata/100 card, cuz then I will need to get new cables (the 18" cables aren't long enough for my case!).

Plus, I don't wanna have to plug the 80 gig ata/100 drives in the ata/66 plug on the mobo...would rather have them running at full ata/100.

Thanks for all your help...

Tibor
tambrus@yahoo.com

 

[Tib]

Ok an update and a bump at the same time

I plugged in the 20 gig hard drive to the ATA/100 card - it's running as master single - along with the 2 other 80 gig drives on the ata/100 card...the damn thing still won't boot!

Why can my computer only boot when it's running off the 20 gig hdd alone? Why can't I use the ATA/100 card to boot, or boot off the 20 gig hdd plugged into the mobo with the 2 80's plugged into the ata/100 card?

Can I please get some help?

Any help would be appreciated

thanks,

Tibor

 

[Tib]

*Temporary fix*

OK well I'm impatient and looks like no one is able to help me here...

So what I did was reinstall win98 on my machine. It's already installed but not working, so I'm reinstalling it.

With win98....I can boot up to DOS with a floppy disk, and then load windows from there, which would work.

***If ANYONE knows of a way to boot up with a floppy and go into windows 2000, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!***

I would much rather run win2k than 98, since I am running a computer with 2 processors.

Anyway, my main drive is now permanently E:, and I don't know how to change it. If and when I add my 3rd and 4th 80 gig drives, which I'll do very soon, then I'll have to reinstall win98 every single time, because the drive letters will always change.

Anyway....someone please help. This is only a "temporary" fix.

Thanks,

Tibor

 

[Tib]

Oh ya, and I just now noticed...hehe....all of my settings stayed...most of them anyway.
All the hardware settings are still there. I just needed to reinstall some software (ftp clients, winamp, etc.), and setup the multiple monitors, and I had no other problems.

OK question for you guru's: I have hardly any experience in NT4. Would you guys think it's worth upgrading for this reason? I mean....my multiple monitors wouldn't work in NT4, right?
That sux, cuz that's the main reason I had win98/2000 installed in the first place

Any help would help me out a lot.

Thanks,

Tibor

 

[Andrew99]

I'm sorry ... I have nothing to contribute ... but seeing four posts on this thread, and all by the original poster... I had to reply ...

I dont' know much about the ATA 100 controller card configs... but the primary IDE chain always comes before the Secondary IDE chain .. the ATA100 chain must be set to precede or follow the on-board IDE chains...

I thought in NT you could select the drive properties, and set the drive letter... Maybe there is something in the BIOS... I have changed the drive letters on NT, but I dont' recall how ..

I know this isn't very helpful, but at least it is a second poster.

 

[Tib]

Thanks for your help....ya I thought about doing that, just don't know how to change the order that things are loaded in BIOS. Anyone here know how to do that and can help me?

I think I'm just gonna call or email maxtor on this, there is no other way to fix it.

Thanks,

Tibor