Bootup problem: "Ultra66 bios not installed".
jcjand...@hotmail.com
max it out at 768 megs. And I upgraded to WindowsXP.
Now everytime I reboot it just boots to a black screen with the error
message: "Operating system not found".
Then I hit the reset and after that, it boots to WindowsXP.
I've noticed that when the operating system isn't found, the computer
briefly flashes the message: "Ultra66 bios not installed".
I took the Ultra66 driver off my Dell Resource cd-rom and tried to
install it but WindowsXP told me it's older than the driver it already
has installed.
Could my computer, during those failed boots, be looking for something
no longer needed by WinXP?
I don't suspect a bad connection inside the box. I already have been
back inside the box and checked all my connections. My ram upgrade
wasn't near my hard drive or interface card. And my computer is
following the pattern of never starting on the first boot and always
starting on the second.
I'd appeciate any ideas, suggestions, or questions.
Thanks,
Joe
David B.
identifying your hard drive, try re-seating your IDE cables, if that doesn't work, remove the ram and see if the problem goes away.
The basics of troubleshooting; If you modify your system and something stops working, undo the modification and see if the problem
goes away.
--
_________________________________
<jcjand...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:3c0e1e4...@news.mindspring.com...
lee
Make sure you check the cables now!
The ATA 66 cables are very easily damaged and I recently
lost my WinME partition due to a faulty cable........ :-(
It also had given me intermittent problems -- which I had ignored :-)
Lee
Stuart Sutherland
Do you indeed have an UDMA66 disk drive? Did it work as an Ultra66
before installing Windows XP or was it UDMA33? Is you BIOS capable of
UDMA66 . Do you have the correct cable? UDMA66 and above require a
different cable than UDMA33 and below.
The error message suggests to me that you only have an UDMA33 BIOS.
If that is the case you need to update you BIOS to UDMA66 or UDMA100
even or get a utility that will reconfigure your drive to UDMA33 if it
is a UDMA66 drive.
Not starting on the first boot indicates to me that something is wrong
with the basic setup and was wrong before installing windows XP. I
would get that sorted first. You cannot expect any operating system
to perform correctly if the hardware is not setup correctly.
Normally the BIOS sets the UDMA mode and Windows reads from that. I
would first check the BIOS setting and depending on the result of that
determines where you go from there.
I recently installed a UDMA100 disk drive on a computer whose BIOS was
only capable of UDMA33. Initially everything seemed fine. The BIOS
reported the drive as UDMA100 but Windows didn't want to know. I
needed to reconfigure the disk drive as UDMA33 with a utility provided
by the manufacture, Seagate. After that everything worked fine.
Incidently Ultra66, UDMA66 ATA66 and UDMA 4 are all essentially the
same thing.
Stuart Sutherland
jcjand...@hotmail.com
I start off by admitting I only have limited knowledge of this stuff.
But I'll try to answer your follow-up questions as best I can.
On my original Dell packing slip it says I got an ATA 66 Controller
Card, Factory Install. And a 27 GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive.
I went into my system bios and under the IDE Configuration tab:
the IDE controller is set to "Secondary"
the Primary IDE Master says "None"
the Primary IDE Slave says "None"
Secondary IDE Master says ["Samsung DVD-Rom SD_608-(S]
Secondary IDE Slave says " [Sony CD-RW CRX1430E-(S]
Thinking that Primary IDE Master should show my hard drive, I tried to
set that to AUTO, hoping it would autodetect my hard drive. It didn't.
Thinking the IDE controller "Secondary" setting was the problem, I
tried "Both". Still didn't autodetect my hard drive or boot on the
first go-round.
I don't see anything else in my system bios about my hard drive or
controller card.
I have Dimension XPS Txxx A11 FlashBIOS the latest version available
on Dell's website. It's dated 10/31/2000.
Thank you again. You're all most generous to offer to share your
knowledge with strangers.
Joe
On Wed, 05 Dec 2001 13:33:55 GMT, jcjand...@hotmail.com wrote:
jcjand...@hotmail.com
In Device Manager, I have listed:
Under SCSI and RAID controllers:
Promise Technology Inc. Ultra IDE Controller
When I look at it's properties, it's Device Usage is grayed out, like
WinXP isn't using it.
and
Under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers:
Intel(r) 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
and it's Device Usage is set to "Use this device (enable)"
along with a
Secondary IDE Channel with it's Device Usage set to "Use this device
(enable)"
I assume this is for my cd-rom and dvd drives.
Thanks again,
Joe
On Wed, 05 Dec 2001 13:33:55 GMT, jcjand...@hotmail.com wrote:
Ron Alexander
their own. When the OS is installed, you have to F6 to load the promise
drivers. Go to the www.promise.com site and hunt around the support section
to get the manuals you need.
Your HD's should show up under the SCSI and RAID not the IDE.
<jcjand...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3c0eee9...@news.mindspring.com...
David B.
--
_________________________________
<jcjand...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:3c0eee9...@news.mindspring.com...
David B.
--
_________________________________
"Ron Alexander" <son...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:uiYN37gfBHA.2128@tkmsftngp03...
Michael Thomas
wrote:
>I believe his is onboard, not a separate card, and his OS is already installed, it stopped working after a ram upgrade.
...and installing winXP. I think his problem lies there, not with the
ram upgrade.
Isn't there supposed to be an update for XP and Ultra66 support?
Could it be that simple? Try running windowsXP update first.
To the original poster, I'm not sure how Dell handles the built-in
Promise controller, but I believe you should see it come up and search
its IDE channel for devices. When mine does it finds my HDD and loads
the bus-mastering drivers then boots.
I would go back into windows device manager and find out where your
HDD is residing. If your HDD is connected to the Promise controller,
it should be listed as a SCSI hard disk somewhere under disk drives.
If not, check under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers and look at the primary
controller properties. If you find a device detected there (look at
advanced settings for current transfer being dma or pio) then the
problem is the drive is connected to the wrong IDE controller.
I doubt this, because you say the drive is not auto-detected in the
BIOS, and believe that the problem is that the drive is not being
detected correctly by the built-in promise controller or the cable is
connected backwards or is defective. An ATA66/100 cable will have
either a blue or gray connector on one end which is supposed to be
plugged into the blue or gray slot on the motherboard.
Good luck,
MT
jcjand...@hotmail.com
Actually I do have a controller card, not on board.
My hard drive, under disk drives in device manager is listed as
IBM-DPTA-372730 SCSI Disk Device. All though the device manager say
device is working properly, the device usage is grayed out.
As I stated in a previous post:
In Device Manager, I have listed:
Under SCSI and RAID controllers:
Promise Technology Inc. Ultra IDE Controller
When I look at it's properties, it's Device Usage is grayed out, like
WinXP isn't using it.
and
Under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers:
Intel(r) 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
and it's Device Usage is set to "Use this device (enable)"
along with a
Secondary IDE Channel with it's Device Usage set to "Use this device
(enable)"
I assume this is for my cd-rom and dvd drives.
Device manager tells my Promise Technology controller is working
properly and that the drive is the most currant. (I tried a driver
install from my Dell Resource disk). The driver installed for the
Promise Technology controller card was installed from XP.
I am leaning towards believing I need to install a flash bios upgrade
for the Ultra 66 bios. I have downloaded one from the Promise website.
Of course, it says it's for Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, and Windows
95/98/98SE, everything but WinXP.
I am waiting to see if Dell support responds to my email. (ya gotta
believe to achieve)
I am also going to momentarily email Promise Technology's support to
ask them what they think and would the flash bios upgrade on their
website work with my card and XP. Unfortunately they don't have any XP
specific information on their site that I found.
I haven't taken out the ram. I thought I remembered hearing that XP is
able to support gigs of ram. Don't see why 768 megs should screw-up my
controller card. But I'm here to learn.
I ran the compatiablity program before I installed XP. XP preferred
Microsoft's programs and drivers over the ones from my printer,
scanner and digital camera (what a surprise) but nothing was mentioned
about my hard drive or controller card.
Thanks again,
Joe
On Wed, 05 Dec 2001 13:33:55 GMT, jcjand...@hotmail.com wrote:
don lebow
>I haven't taken out the ram. I thought I remembered hearing that XP is
>able to support gigs of ram. Don't see why 768 megs should screw-up my
>controller card. But I'm here to learn.
That's the first thing to try. If you add hardware and things turn weird, then
the next step is to unplug the hardware and see if things revert. I looked up
your system at http://www.crucial.com, and it doesn't look like 768M should be
a problem. IF (and it's a big if) the ram is compatible with the system and
what you have installed now (e.g. it's generally more stable if you don't mix
ram types), and not faulty.
From here, it looks like your system just isn't starting up properly -- the OS
really has nothing to do with this. If the only variable is the memory you
added, then it's not out of line to suspect that something's wrong there...
--
don (MVP)
http://www.shaka.com/~mdon
Please follow up to the group ... thanks!
Unknown
*******
I'm using the same controller card in an ABIT BH6 m/b without any
problems.
here is what I see::::
my IDE ATA/ATAPI controller is enabled and working because I have 2
cd roms and a hard drive on the internal controller
MY SCSI and raid controllers::
are enabled and able to check the drivers and signing, etc.
Have you got the boot sequence set to SCSI then C:????
this will enable the promise card to work, If not try that, second ,
I would get the driver package from Promise Tech downloads and
re-install the drivers. I had a similar problem when I first
installed the promise ultra card, but after setting the boot sequence
right I cured that.
BOTH the IDE and the SCSI controllers have to NOT BE GRAYED out for
the system to work properly.
hope this helps.,,
Bob Smith
Robert Smith Consulting
Mendocino Coast Wireless
and
I haven't taken out the ram. I thought I remembered hearing that XP is
able to support gigs of ram. Don't see why 768 megs should screw-up my
controller card. But I'm here to learn.
I ran the compatiablity program before I installed XP. XP preferred
Microsoft's programs and drivers over the ones from my printer,
scanner and digital camera (what a surprise) but nothing was mentioned
about my hard drive or controller card.
Thanks again,
Joe
On Wed, 05 Dec 2001 13:33:55 GMT, jcjand...@hotmail.com wrote:
Michael Notforyou
I've got this on my Dell Dimension XPS T750r, with the same HD and
Controller Card as you. Windows XP, possibly by a bug, shuts down the hard
drives COMPLETELY on shut down. The IBM-DPTA-372730 takes a longer time to
warm up than the Promise card wants to wait, so it skips itself and says, "I
have no drives." (On my computer I've got a WD Caviar on the Promise card
too, with a Win98 Boot Sector on there.) I haven't tested it, but did you
load Promise's drivers on their Website?
Requesting that the CDROM and Floppy boot before the IDE Hard Drives in the
Dell BIOS will lessen the amount that this error occurs, in my experience.
It's not your RAM, it's a Windows XP bug. I've got it too.
Dell will refuse to support it. You're running XP, therefore they don't like
you. Of course, my ISP doesn't like me because they don't support XP.
Period.
*Michael Notforyou*
<jcjand...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3c0fd26d...@news.mindspring.com...
Mike Miller
didn't press F6 on 1st reboot install to load the SCSI driver because
I didn't think I had one. Setup worked with no problems, but I have
the same cold bootup problem Ultra66 Bios not installed.
What is the solution to this situation?
Thanks - Mike
jcjand...@hotmail.com wrote in message news:<3c0e1e4...@news.mindspring.com>...
Robert Willis
Check to make sure that your BIOS is set to boot from the ADD In Controller.
I have this message on my Promise Ultra 100TX2 and it usually is a result of
BIOS corruption which changes the boot order whenever I issue a reboot from
Windows XP Professional.
FYI: So far I have sent Promise eighteen E-Mail messages (9 to Technical
Support and 9 to Sales) and they have NEVER returned a single technical
support request. I did get to talk to a technician who was not helpful at
all. His only solution was to re-format and reinstall Windows XP.
What type of harddrives do you have connected to the Ultra 66 controller??
On the Ultra 100 TX2 that I have installed in my Gateway computer I have a
Western Digital 100GB (ATA100) and a IBM 30GB (ATA66).
--
Regards
Robert Willis
E-Mail: robert...@swbell.net
"Mike Miller" <mpmil...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:be0ce9c6.01120...@posting.google.com...
Mike Miller
computer 1st powers up and changing the order in which the drives
bootup. I set the HD to bootup 3rd, it now boots up after the floppy
and cd drives. I believe it allows the ultra66 bios time to install
before it goes to boot windows XP.
I've done a dozen cold booups without a problem!
Thanks - Mike
jcjand...@hotmail.com wrote in message news:<3c0e1e4...@news.mindspring.com>...