Ultra DMA 133 TX Promise controller prob 1

[EugeneTr]

Hi!

I have Ultra DMA 133 TX Promise controller with two IDEs installed on one of the PCIs slots. Whenever i connect a hard drive/CDROM to the card and boot, i'm getting this message: "There is no Ultra DMA 133 bios installed because there are no drives attached" which is very strange to me because the drives are attached, and, moreover, recently I upgraded the Ultra DMA 133 bios.

In other words the controller doesn't see the drives/devices attached to it.

My system is AMD XP 2000+, ECS K7S5A.

Any suggestions?

 

[KimLeece]

Does the machine actually see the card properly? (Check in System Devices) If that is ok I'd try connecting the drives one at a time and see if that makes any difference. I presume you are using them both as master - one on each channel - are the jumper settings OK?

Just suggestions!

Kim Leece.

(Also you could check for a mobo bios update)

 

[gargouille]

Is this an older card or is it a TX2?
Looking at the Promise site at the FAQ the card isn't listed. T2 is listed.

 

[EugeneTr]

It is a TX2 card!

 

[EugeneTr]

To KimLeece:
The system sees the card! The device manager detects it. The jumper settings are ok. I tried having only a hard drive on the controller and the system halts not seeing the hard drive because it can't boot. Mobo has the latest bios.

 

[gargouille]

We're taking for granted you've loaded the drivers. Guess you get a message in the boot screen to load them (usually with accompanying "Hit F6 to load drivers"?
Using a hard drive on the controller then becomes possible but you still have to define an array.
Was there a manual that came with the card?

 

[EugeneTr]

Yes, all drivers are loaded, and there is a manual!

 

[gargouille]

...and you've described an array?

 

[EugeneTr]

What do you mean by describing an array????

 

[gargouille]

I beg your pardon, I mistakenly thought this was a RAID controller!
Okay, now that maybe we're on the same page, you say you flashed the BIOS.
Then this is a system that WAS running?
A few more details wouldn't hurt.

 

[KimLeece]

I just had a quick look at the TX2 specs - am I right in thinking that this is a card that supports two serial drives and has one ultra-dma channel? I would check the card /manual to make sure that the udma channel is enabled (not just the serial ones). Is it possible to make a boot disk with the card drivers on as well to troubleshoot it from there? Also I presume that you are connecting to the udma channel and not the serial. You are trying to boot through this card and that might be the problem - depending on when the card driver is installed in the boot process - if the card driver is on your hard disk then I don't see how it could be loaded to read itself - chicken and egg!

As gargouille says - a few more details would help,

Kim Leece.

 

[gargouille]

Move the card to another PCI slot.
Did you get any messages when you flashed the BIOS? (like a success or failure?)

 

[EugeneTr]

Ultra Dma 133 TX2 is not a RAID controller.

From the specs of the card:

"The controller installs easily into any available PCI slot on your system’s motherboard.
The Ultra133 TX2 controller card provides two IDE channels that support Ultra ATA/100
protocols.
Ultra133 TX2’s two IDE connectors each support a master/slave combination of IDE
devices, including Ultra ATA, EIDE, IDE, Fast-ATA, and ATAPI. "

At first, I installed the drivers of the card so that i can see in the device manager that the card is in the system. Then, I tried to connect my hard drive to the card (so there is no chicken&egg problem). The controller could not detect the drive and it displayed a message: "There is no Ultra DMA 133 bios installed because there are no drives attached". I decided to upgrade the bios of the CONTROLLER just to make sure whether it is update. I updated it without troubles but it didnt solve the problem. Anyways i'm getting the same message.

The controller doesn't see the drives. I connected my CDrom to the controller and again it didnt see it however i was able to boot into Windows. Just I didnt see my Cdrom. This is the additional information which i can give.

Thank you.

 

[EugeneTr]

I tried moving the card into another PCI slot. It gives the same results. The bios was upgraded successfully.

 

[KimLeece]

Two questions -
Are you using Windows XP?
Are you using the XP driver for this card or the one from the floppy disk?

Kim Leece

 

[EugeneTr]

I'm using Windows XP and using the latest XP driver for this card which i downloaded from the web.

 

[KimLeece]

Ok - according to the manual (page 9) - you shouldn't use the XP driver but you should use the one that comes with the card on the floppy provided. If you use the wrong driver then you will get this error message -"no drives attached"
Change the driver to the one on the floppy and see if that helps.

Kim

 

[KimLeece]

Soryy - manual - page 7.

Kim

 

[EugeneTr]

Yeah, i know from the manual that i can't use the original XP driver and i didnt use it! I used the one which i downloaded from Promise web-site and which is said there to be the driver for windows XP. This is not a problem I guess

 

[KimLeece]

Ok - from what I can see you should have these bios/driver files in use:

Bios download: 1-100-10.zip date:2002/09/30
Driver: .....2.00.0.39 logo driver.zip date 2002/10/02

If these are the files you have used then they should work together. I think that if they are not working together then you will have to contact Promise support directly as this does not seem to be an installation or setup problem. I'm presuming that you used the supplied cable etc - with the blue connector at the correct end and pin1 on the correct side -
There doesn't seem a lot more to suggest but I'll keep thinking about it.
I don't know how many times you have already done it - but to completely uninstall the driver and try to reinstall it from scratch might fix it (i.e remove the card and delete the driver - reboot once without it - put it back in and do it again)

Sorry if this has not been much help - hang in there!!

Kim Leece.