A7V133 HD problem...Help?

[dj_unforgetable]

Alright, i have an A7V133 and as you know i have 5 IDE slots on the board. 2 IDE slots (primary and Secondary), and i have 2 Ultra 100 slots(primary and secondary). And on floopy ide slot. I plug in my floopy in its slot, and i plug in my dvd rom into the Primary IDE slot. Next i plug in my harddrive into the Primary Ultra-100 Slot, right? Is what im doing right? How do i know that my harddriver has been recognized in the BIOS?

 

[robjustice]

Yes the harddrive goes into the primary ata100 connector. When you boot it will list all devises during the boot, or enter the bio's and it will also show you there.

 

[dj_unforgetable]

Ya..thats the thing, when i first boot up it shows:

Primary Master : Sony DVD-ROM
Primary Slave: None
Secondary Master: None
Seconadry Slave: None

Is that normal on this board? Should this list my Hardrive?

 

[robjustice]

One screen before that one, if will show you your harddrive. It is only for a second, and then it goes into the screen you are talking about. But from the screen you are talking about it should show, mass storage device in the lower right-in the middle or so.

 

[PDL]

If your HDD is connected to the PROMISE connectors(which are the ATA100) you must be sure the (Load onboard ATA BIOS) is enabled in the BIOS, otherwise the HDD will not be set up.
If all you have are the HDD and the CD-Rom, connect the CD-Rom to the secondary and the HDD to the primary of the 'Primary IDE connectors', that's the ones next to the floppy connector. Then you don't need the ATA100.
This board supports ATA100 on all 4 channels.

 

[FRANK]

I have an A7V133 with the Promise controller set up in a RAID 0 arrangement. I have two 30G hdd's set up on those channels and they don't show as IDE drives rather, they are shown on the next screen after the BIOS scans for them. Although this is a good setup it does add quite a bit to the boot time. I also believe that you have to install the Promise software before those channels will be recognized.

 

[dj_unforgetable]

So rather than hook up my hardriver to the ata-100 ide channels, i should hook them up to the primary IDE channel? BUt then what is the point of having the ultra-100 ide channels in the first place? I thought that they were supposed to be advanced or something...

 

[Goldwing]

The promise IDE controller is equivalent (bios wise) to installing a Promise IDE controller card. So when you enter the system bios the only devices that you will see are those on the IDE connectors next to the floppy connector. To boot to the Promise connected HD your boot options must be set to:
1. Removeable Device [Legacy Floppy] (disk a
2. Other Boot Device [SCSI/Onboard ATA Boot Device] (required to boot device on ATA100 connectors)
3. ATAPI CD-ROM [Device name] (must be connected to the IDE connectors next to the floppy connector.)
4. IDE Hard Drive [Device name] (must be connected to the IDE connectors next to the floppy connector.)

You are able to shuffle the order by highlighing a choice and hitting '+' to promote a device or '-' to demote a device.

Hope this helps.

 

[dj_unforgetable]

I belive that those settings are exactly what i have in my bios...The thing is when it lists :

Primary Master: SOny DVD-ROM
Primary Slave: None
Secondary Master: None
Secondary Slave: None

After this screen, it says "Detecting." that is followed by blinking "/"'s and then it shows my maxtor hardrive.

 

[Goldwing]

dj_unforgetable (Jul 10, 2001 06:52 a.m.):
I belive that those settings are exactly what i have in my bios...The thing is when it lists :

Primary Master: SOny DVD-ROM
Primary Slave: None
Secondary Master: None
Secondary Slave: None

After this screen, it says "Detecting." that is followed by blinking "/"'s and then it shows my maxtor hardrive.

That is what it will show because the Promise controller has its own bios separate from the mainboard bios. You cannot view/adjust the Promise bios the same as the mainboard bios. It is the same as far as the mainboard bios is concerned as if you added a separate PCI card to a non raid board.

 

[dj_unforgetable]

So goldwing, did you plug your Maxtor 20 gb Hardrive in to the Primary ata-100 slot? or did you plug it into the normal Primary IDE slot?

 

[Goldwing]

oops.

 

[Goldwing]

Initially yes.
20G hd Primary ATA100 (boot)
CDRW secondary ATA100
10G hd Primary IDE
CD-rom secondary IDE
All masters

This worked fine for a month or so until the need for a clean install reared its ugly head. Then the comp would often hang during boot at the Promise bios detect. I like the ability to boot off either 20G hd, 10H hd or the CD-rom.

I currently am configured with:
20G hd on primary IDE,
10G hd on secondary IDE,
CDRW on primary ATA100, and
CD-rom on secondary ATA100.
All masters and this works well for me.

I have heard of several people with A7V133's which claim to get better HD performance on the normal IDE connectors than the ATA100 connectors. I have not verified this due to my software issues and recent hardware issues.

Until I (a) Get a new PS to replace my PS which just died, (b) back up my data, (c) reformat the 20G and reload the OS I am stuck here.

 

[PDL]

Goldwing, have you tried to boot from your CDRW with that configuration?
I noticed that the manual for the A7V133, like its little brother the A7V, says that the PROMISE controller will not support these drives as BOOT devices.
I haven't tried it yet, but I may, just to see if it will work.

 

[Goldwing]

No I haven't tried to boot from either of my CD drives in this configuration yet and I have assumed it won't let me.

But now that you mention it, I just might be able to. I think I will try it once I get my power supply replaced.