A7V and IBM Hard Drive

[LTCARE]

Set up A7V with Duron 600 and 15g IBM 100 ATA drive with ATA cable. Everything turned on and worked first time around. O/S was installed successfully. However, M/B Bios does not recognize hard drive, even though it works. I have it plugged into the Primary ATA 100 as the master and have a CDROM drive plugged in the non-ATA 100 port. When Bios screen appears identifying type of drives, etc. the CDROM is the only one that is identified on the screen. NOW, if I plug in the IBM drive in the NON-ATA 100 port, the BIOS recognizes it. I installed the ATA 100 driver in the O/S and everything works fine. No hang ups anywhere.

Is this the correct set up? Have I correctly installed my hard drive? Or have I missed something here. Let me know. Thanks.

 

[pdo]

Have you enable the Promise controller in BIOS yet? And what BIOS version are you using?

 

[LTCARE]

Bios 1003 and I didn't an option for turning on or off the promise controller. Where is this feature located in the bios?

 

[pdo]

Actually only version 1004A and up has that features in BIOS. So you might want to upgrade.

 

[paulip88]

Yes, you have correctly setup the drive. The reason why you don't see the drive in the BIOS is because the drive is attached to the ATA100.

The ATA100 is a third party Promise controller that is intgrated on the mobo. However, it still acts as a PCI card. Thus, its behavior is similar to a SCSI card. The drives attached can only be viewed using the card's BIOS (which I don't think it can do anyway since you cannot access the Promise BIOS, at least not that I know of).

The mobo itself has the ATA66 controller that is part of the chipset. For this reason, the IDE devices shown in the mobo BIOS are the ones on the ATA66, since that is the one handled by the mobo chipset. This is why you could only see the ATA66 devices in the mobo's BIOS.

Do NOT upgrade the BIOS and disable the Promise controller. This, obviously, will disble the Promise controller and you will no longer be able to use the ATA100 controller or your drive's ATA100 support.

 

[LTCARE]

Thanks for the info. I will leave my set up the way it is. Without the a new bios update, I don't have the choice to turn off or on the Promise controller. However, I will leave my hard drive plugged in the Promise controller and take advantage of the IBM 100 ATA feature.

 

[Vpham97]

Yes, stay w/ Bios 1003 until you solved your problem. There is more pain trying to install under Bios 1004a.

You must also install the Promise Drivers in Windows.

My system is running great right now under Primary IDE, but won't boot up when plug into the promise controller. It's getting late and I'll try to solve it tomorrow.

 

[LTCARE]

The system runs great and the drive boots up fine. It just doesn't show up in the bios summary screen. The promise controller identifies the IBM drive and in windows the controller shows up fine too. I was just wondering about this situation because it is different than other systems that I have setup. Thanks for all the info.

 

[nate hancock]

Hey LT,

Sounds like you and I have a similar basic setup. I didn't get the hard drive to be recognized with the ATA-100 connection, so I also switched it to non-ATA 100 and it works fine. Maybe if it works OK I shouldn't mess with it, but I would like to get the most out of the drive that I can.

Hate to show my ignorance, but could you or someone else tell me the steps on installing the ATA-100 driver into the O/S, including where to get the ATA-100 driver?

This is my first system and I have been pretty lucky with it so far so I would hate to do it wrong. thx.

 

[paulip88]

The driver somes on the driver CDE provided by Asus.

Note: To boot off the ATA100, you need to enable the boot off ATA first option in the BIOS. Setting the first boot device to SCSI will also help.

Driver Note: Current drivers can be found on the Asus web site. But drivers are included on the CD that came with your board.

If you are installing Win98:
It should install fine with the drive on the ATA100. Installing the driver in Win98 afterwards would enhance performance.

If you are installing WinNT/Win2K:
Install the OS when the drive is not on the ATA66 if possible. Then, when the OS has been installed and loaded, install the driver for the ATA100 off the Asus CD. Reboot. After reboot, the driver should have configured itself. Shut down and switch the drive to the ATA100. Reboot off the ATA 100.

 

[LTCARE]

Nate - I have the drive plugged into the primary ATA 100 port. In the bios, I have set the primary master and slave to "none" - set the second master to "auto" so my CDROM is recongnized and the secondary slave to "none" When the screen boots up, the bios summary shows just the CDROM. Immediately after that screen the Promise controller identifies the IBM drive. I installed windows ME and the driver from the the ASUS cdrom disk just as the instructions said. Everything worked fine the first time around. I went to the ASUS home page and down loaded the lastest promise corntroller driver and updated it as well. No problems and I am using the IBM drive as it is intended to be used. The drive is quiet and fast. Thanks for all the help from others.

 

[nate hancock]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the help! Actually, I did install the OS when the drive was connected on the ATA-66. When it was on the ATA-100 it wouldn't recognize so we had to switch it over to 66.

 

[Vpham97]

nate hancock,
Here is how you might be able to get your OS to boot under ATA 100.
It does not matter what Bios revision you have(1003 & 1004X.)

1) Under ATA 66, install the Promise Drivers. The driver came w/ your cd. Or, download the Promise 100 driver straight from Asus.. Under Window Me, go to Control Panel, Add new Hardware, select "No, the device is not in the disk", select "No, I wanted to select hardware from the list", choose "other devices", choose "have disk", point windows to where your Promise's driver are located. Restart Windows.

2) Plug your cable into the Primary Promise ATA 100 pin spot.

3) Under the Bios, you can leave both the IDE channel under auto detection. This will make it less problematic when you try to install something later on and forget to reset this setting.

4) Set your Bios as follow.
* Onboard ATA device First [Yes]
* If you have revision 1004x, set your ATA 100 to Auto.

5) Here is the most important step you seem to be missing.
* Under BOOT, set it like this
1. Remove Device [Legacy Floppy]
2. Other Boot Device [Scsi/ Promise ATA 100 DEVICE]
3. IDE Hard Drive [None] (If you only have one hard drive)
4. Atapi Cd-Rom [Whatever kind of CD-rom you have]

Instruction 5.2 was the reason why you booted fine under ATA 66, but your system told you that you have an invalid or missing operating system when you tried to boot under ATA 100. Tell us if this is not fixing your problem.

 

[nate hancock]

Vinh- Thanks very much! I'll print this out and give it a try. I'll let you know if it works OK. Thanks for going to all that effort. I am actually using Win 98 SE but I assume it should work about the same way.