Disk # Assignment, Controller Cards, Partition Commander

[PeteB]

I've come upon a paradoxical situation. Looking for ideas.

Win XP Pro SP1 system. Dell Dimension XPS series desktop
with a Promise Technologies DMA Ultra/100 (plain or TX2)
controller card. System drive configuration
(MB=motherboard, C=controller card):

MB IDE primary: no drives
MB IDE secondary: CD-RW (master), Zip 250 (slave)
C IDE primary: hard disk drive with WinXP Pro
C IDE secondary: no drives

When system boots, BIOS seems to scan motherboard first
and then controller card. It assigns Zip 250 as "disk 0"
as seen in Computer Management. Hard drive is "disk 1".

(If I disconnect the Zip 250 drive, the hard drive becomes
disk 0. If I reconnect the Zip 250, then the Zip drive
again becomes disk 0.)

Partition Commander software package requires that the
boot drive be disk 0. It cannot work with the boot drive
as another disk according to V-com tech support.

So, I am looking for a way to get the hard drive
recognized as disk 0.

I could stop using the HDD Controller card and connect the
hard drive to the MB primary port. Undesirable due to
higher performance from the controller card.

It seems that if I connect the Zip 250 drive to the
controller's secondary IDE channel it will get scanned
after the hard drive and the hard drive would be drive 0.

I have previously had difficulty when connecting an
internal CD-RW drive to the controller card. I've been
told previously in this forum that I should not connect
ATAPI CD-RW drives to the controller - that they should
connect to the MB IDE ports.

Question: Anyone see problems if I try connecting the
internal ATAPI Zip 250 drive to the Promise controller
card?

Thanks.

[Nathan McNulty]

The only way to find out is by testing it. I don't see why there would
be a problem, but I have never used a ZIP drive. The IDE Controllers
should all be compatible. Is the onboard UDMA66 only or something? If
the card is ATA100, it is backwards compatible and will work with the
ZIP Drive. I see no problems ;)

----
Nathan McNulty

[BAR]

BIOS will assign the highest priority to on-board IDE and then to PCI cards.

Windows XP will follow, with the exception that it will always call the HDD with Op Sys C-Drive if one does a clean install.
I suggest:

MOBO - IDE 0 - HDD 0 - Jumper as Master
MOBO - IDE 1 - CD-RW - Jumper as Master
PCI - IDE 0 - ZIP250 - Jumper as Master
PCI - IDE 1 - next drive to be installed - Jumper as Master

This should help to conform to 'standards' and avoid conflicts.

[anon...@discussions.microsoft.com]

Thank you to both Nathan and BAR. I'm thinking this
assignment would work also, assuming the Zip drive will
work on the controller. I'll give both a try. I prefer to
put the HDD on the controller to get its higher
performance as compared to the MOBO.

MOBO - IDE 0 - CD-RW - Jumper as Master
MOBO - IDE 1 - unused - Jumper as Master
PCI - IDE 0 - HDD 0 - Jumper as Master
PCI - IDE 1 - Zip 250 - Jumper as Master

[Bob Willard]

PeteB wrote:

What makes you think that the Promise card delivers higher
performance than the on-board IDE controller? I'll bet that
you get the same or higher STR, as measured by HDtach, with
your HD on the on-board IDE.

Hint: don't be confused by a Promised (sic) claim of U/100
vs. the on-board IDE's U/66 (if it is). Those are merely bus
speeds, not transfer rates; few shipping HDs are capable of
STRs fast enough to be limited by U/66 or U/100.

Stick that boot HD on the primary on-board IDE, jumpered as
a Master, and be happy.
--
Cheers, Bob

[Nathan McNulty]

That is so true. Internal disk speeds have broken the 66 MB/s mark, but
this is not consistent and only a very new hard drive will be capable of
that kind of speed. Only one caveat, UDMA66 means it has a max
throughput of 66 MB/s, but they never function at 100% efficiency.

I really do agree that you aren't seeing any performance increase by
using that PCI Card though. The data route is much longer and ties up
your PCI Bus. This is why they say not to use an HD and a CD Burner on
that card. Because the data throughput could get ugly.

----
Nathan McNulty

[PeteB]

Thanks everyone for the thoughts and suggestions. I wound
up trying the configuration I mentioned in an intermediate
response where I forgot to put in PeteB so it shows as
from anonymous.

Here's the configuration (PCI = the Promise Controller):

MOBO - IDE 0 - CD-RW - Master position
MOBO - IDE 1 - unused - Master position
PCI - IDE 0 - HDD 0 - Master position
PCI - IDE 1 - Zip 250 - Master position

Drives are actually in Cable Select, which Dell says to
use in their Dimension desktops. Seems to be working fine.
The HDD shows in XP Drive Management as disk 0. May well
not have much advantage beyond using the MOBO - I
appreciate those two opinions.

[PeteB]

One final note - KEY to success.

It's essential to update the BIOS and the Windows driver
on the Promise controller card. In particular for Win XP,
Windows will say that it cannot find a better driver than
the one already in use. Despite that, force a manual
update to use the Promise Technologies WinXP driver. Also
realize that Windows will warn that the Promise driver is
unsigned and ask a couple of times if you really want to
do this. Do it. Then the Zip (and probably CD-ROM) ATAPI
drive will work fine.