Promise RAID in A7V333 - help appreciated

[jalves 0]

Hi there,

 

I have an Asus A7V333 motherboard with Promise RAID and I connected my 2 60GB hard-drives to the Promise IDE connectors.

 

Doesn't matter if I use the drives as a RAID 0 array or each as an independent array (haven't tried RAID 1 array), when I try to install WinXP Pro (also tried RedHat Linux 7.3) it says I have no hard-drives.

 

The hard-drives work well in the "classic" IDE connectors of the motherboard.

 

I would really appreciate someone's help.

[Faber38 0]

hi...

you must copy the Promise-device from your cd on a 3.5" and when you install XP ...you drop F6 for binding a new SCSI-device

 

sorry for my english

[Norseman 0]

Having this exact same problem, and have tried the pretty much all of the work arounds to no avail... Check the following link for a thread I used to describe my problems:

 

http://www.pchardwareforum.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=36818#post36818

 

In a nutshell, the problem really comes down to this one thing:

http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314859

 

I cannot figure out how to do what this article describes I am almost at a point where I don't even want to bother with RAID anymore if the standard IDE slots work...

[TheFlash 0]

For problem with asus motherboards go to

http://www.braziliantech.com/forum/

and

http://www.a7vtroubleshooting.com/info/bios/modified_bios.htm

what every u need all info is there even mod bios.

[CrazyKillerMan 0]

have you tried using the drivers from asus's website when setting up windows?

 

Promise Lite Drivers

 

I have the same board, and I can get windows install to see the raid controller and the hard drives attached to it.

 

1) Have you built your array and is the controller's bios seeing the array when boot occurs?

 

2) Download those drivers and copy the unzipped version to a floppy. Hammer on f6 when windows asks you and pick the windows XP MBLite driver (his 'S' to specify another device and it will check the floppy for a driver and a list will come up). After this stage, you should be able to install on your RAID array, although you will probably have to format the drive first (my 2 x 40 takes awhile).

 

 

 

EDIT

There is also a setting in the bios - i forget - im not at home now. Something along the lines of "boot using both devices" or something...when I get home I can tell you more.

/EDIT

[Christianb 8]

My recomendation is that you return your Promise Raid setup ASAP while the store you bought it at will still take it back. Neither ASUS or Promise is going to give you your money back so take it back. I used to work at Microsoft in the Windows consumer hardware lab. I worked there through the release of Windows 98SE and a little of Windows 2000. I know hardware, I know drivers, I know the OS and I tried to get one of those Promise raid controllers to work and it was the single largest waste of my time ever. Not only that it will only work in crappy mode (the best that can be expected from a broken "Promise") if you reinstall windows. I used to do 30-70 installs of Windows a day it's fairly quick when you don't have to worry about propagating applications, settings, and data. However if you do have to move your old data over it can be extremely time consuming. I asked for my money back, they wouldn't give it so I sold that piece of garbage on Half.com (don't recall which). I'll give you my best advice - KISS: Keep it Simple Stupid. There are other raid controllers and they are all more complicated and more prone to incompatibilities and crashes. Sure if you have mirroring you might keep the data on the drive, but if your system crashes more often who cares. If you want more speed why not try a safer means of acceleration like the latest processor, a speedy new 3d card, or a gig of ram.

Good Luck and I hope you return it,

Christian Blackburn

[CrazyKillerMan 0]

Quote:

My recomendation is that you return your Promise Raid setup ASAP while the store you bought it at will still take it back

Its onboard RAID, he wont be able to take it back, and ASUS probably wont give you money back but they do have a 3 year warranty on boards and they will replace it if it is defective.

Quote:

I know hardware, I know drivers, I know the OS and I tried to get one of those Promise raid controllers to work and it was the single largest waste of my time ever.

I have gotten both the RAID on my motherboard, A7V333 (Promise) and a seperate promise fast trak 100 card to work on an a7m-266 (another ASUS) the first time, every time. Why would a company like promise, who relies on sales of their controller products and raid products release something that doesnt work.

Quote:

Not only that it will only work in crappy mode (the best that can be expected from a broken "Promise") if you reinstall windows.

My manuals dont define "crappy mode" - but I can take a guess. I'm figuring your latency on the PCI bus was too high, causing the controller to be smothered. Possibly from sound/video/network cards. I get a noticable improvement, and that improvement is shown in HD Tach and Sandra (although I could give a damn). If you are refering to a hard drives speed you also have to address the south bridge chipset, and that has alot to do with it, so promise cant be blamed for all of your problems.