Please HELP!! Need to install Promise Ultra66 controller

[Immortal Night]

>Subject: Please HELP!! Need to install Promise Ultra66 controller
>From: RK eins...@REMOVEhotpop.com
>Date: Sat, 24 July 1999 03:26 AM EDT
>Message-id: <37996A7E...@REMOVEhotpop.com>
>
>Hello. I'm building a computer from scratch and so far I have the
>following drives plugged in: WD Expert 18 GB HDD on Promise Ultra66
>controller card, CD-ROM drive, 250 MB zip drive, and 3.5" floppy
>drive. The CD-ROM drive is on Primary and zip drive is on secondary
>(both master).
>
>When I go into the BIOS and automatically detect the drives the
>HDD is not detected, but the other three are. However, when I
>disable the onboard IDE controller (not the Ultra66) I'm able
>to gain access to the HDD at the expense of the CD-ROM drive and
>the zip drive. (I partitioned and formatted the HDD by disabling
>the onboard IDE controller.)
>
>I need to install Win 98 but I can't since the HDD and the CD-ROM
>drive cannot work together simultaneously. Does anyone know what
>I have to do so that the onboard IDE controller will work together
>with the Ultra66? (BTW, my MoBo is a Tyan Tomahawk BX).
>
>This problem has been driving me nuts all day. Thanks a million
>for any help!
>
>- Ray

Just plug everything into the Promise and leave the Zip's installation until
later.

I would leave the onboard IDE alone. If you have an option to boot with scsi, I
would allow for that somewhere. The promise card is basically treated like a
SCSI card since that is the only well established controller for storage
devices.

Life is easier if you have another computer handy. When I put together this
system, I plugged the promise into my old computer and had the promise handle
the large capacity of the Expert 18. I then fdisked with FAT32 and went along.
I copied the installation files for win98 onto a partition I created on the
drive and they're still there in case they are needed. The fdisk and format
situation is annoying and best handled like that.

You can ignore the previous paragraph.

The promise card do not need anything special to work properly until you have
win98 installed, and even then all you need are promise's win98 drivers.

If you plugged everything into the Promise card, you will get an extended
bootup time since the card has to be initialized and once the motherboard BIOS
routine is done you will see text displayed by the Pomise card's BIOS showing
you the drives connected to it. Then you can tell everything's fine with the
card. You don't really need anything connected to the motherboard in terms of
drives unless you want more than 4 IDE devices (which I have 5 of installed
properly). The floppy must be of course.

You do not need to go into the motherboard's BIOS by hitting delete o F1 or
what not.
[:{) '^_^ (}:]

[RK]

[Ted Rutledge]

Why don't you try putting your CD-ROM and zip as master and slave
respectively on your secondary on board IDE channel and mark the primary
channel, master and slave, as 'None', see if this works.
I must confess that I've never worked with a Promise controller card but
their web documentation talks of expanding a computers IDE capability (i.e
six units instead of four ). Perhaps the Promise documentation gives a clue
as to how this is accomplished.

RK <eins...@REMOVEhotpop.com> wrote in message
news:37996A7E...@REMOVEhotpop.com...

[Michael Wright]

Did you install the Promise controller with C:drive installed on the MB
BEFORE placing a HD on the controller? This is how Promise instructs new
install, if not, the system can't see C: drive to install the controller in
windows(cart before the horse). The controller should work fine with the
onboard controller enabled. I am using all 4 controllers on my system. You
can set unused channel(s) to "none" in the BIOS to prevent it from searching
for devices on boot, shortening start-up.

Michael Wright

Ted Rutledge <tedro...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:7nckse$luc$1...@nntp1.atl.mindspring.net...

[Dave M.]

I'll give you the short answer. The Promise controller wants irq 15. Feed
it, it won't work if you don't feed it the irq. How you do it is up to you.
Dave

[Rich Wilson]

The answer is simple. All you have to do is change your bios setup to boot
to A,SCSI,C. There is no need to disable anything! The Promise is
considered a SCSI controller. That way it will boot to the WD and you should
have access to everything.

Rich

[Dave M.]

Hint: Disable the onboard secondary controller.
Dave

[The Upgrader]

I don't have a SCSI option in my motherboard BIOS, I only see drive A and C.
Does the Promise BIOS take control once installed and does the SCSI option
appear in the Promise BIOS?

Rich Wilson wrote in message ...

[Rich Wilson]

Without a SCSI option in Bios it appears that you have to disable the
onboard IDE controller in order to boot to the ultra66. I can't see
any other way to do it. Most current MB's allow for SCSI booting.

Rich

In article <%GJm3.9244$Pm1....@news4.atl>,

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[toddman]

Why don't you disable the onboard IDE and connect the zip and the CD rom
drive to the Promise controller.
That should get you around the bios problem.

[Eric Gisin]

There are boot managers that give you control over the boot device:
http://www.blueskyinnovations.com/

Rich Wilson wrote in message <7nigpb$upu$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
:Without a SCSI option in Bios it appears that you have to disable the
:onboard IDE controller in order to boot to the ultra66. I can't see

:

[RK]

Thanks a lot for the help guys! The best solution that worked for
me was the same one given by Rich Wilson. When I changed the BIOS
to boot from A:, SCSI, and ATAPI CD-ROM (in that order) the HD was
detected without a flaw (thanks Rich!). I must say, the Western
Digital 18 GB Expert drive is damn fast! Applications start in
milliseconds! I'm very happy with its performance.

Now, the only big problem remaining is an incompatibility with
the USB controller and my SMC EtherEZ PCI card. I guess that's
for another thread. :-\

- Ray