Netware 5.0 and IDE hard drives larger than 137gb

[mat...@cesoinc.com]

I have a Netware 5.0 sp6a server with a 160GB IDE hard drive. It is
connected to a Promise Ultra 133 TX2 pci IDE card. The card recognizes
the drive as 160 GB however Netware will not recognize any more than
130+GB. Is there any way to integrate the updated IDE drivers from novell
certified driver page into Netware 5.0 so I can get beyond the 137GB limit?

[Tim Heywood (NSC Sysop)]

The source of the latest drives is
http://developer.novell.com/devres/storage/drivers/index.html

If you are doing a new install put them in a c:\nwupdate directory. If you have
installed the server already, just replaced the existing drivers (but take a
backup first)

Tim

No Direct e-Mail Please!
--
****************
Tim Heywood
Independent Consultant
Scotland
(God's Country)
Novell Support Connection SYSOP
****************

In theory, practice and theory are the same,
In practice they are different!

[mat...@cesoinc.com]

Thanks for the quick reply. I already installed the server and tried to
replace the drivers from the link in the c:\nwserver directory. Now the
server hangs looking for "devices and partitions" while booting. If I
copy back the old versions it boots fine. Any suggestions?

[Barry Schnur]

I wonder if the issue here is *changing* the driver *after* the earlier
version is already on line and has configured for the smaller partition
size.

--
Barry Schnur
Novell Support Connection Volunteer Sysop

[mat...@cesoinc.com]

I scraped the old server and am starting new from a fresh install. I have
put the new drivers from the link you suggested into the neupdate
directory, but the install chokes when trying to install the ideata.
It says "The following driver instance failed to load and will be deleted:
c:\nwupdate\ideata.ham slot=10005 (The device supported by the driver may
be disabled.)"

This is as far in the installation as I can get. Any suggestions on how
to load the new ideata.ham (dated 6\6\03) into a netware 5.0 installation?

Thanks

[Barry Schnur]

> I scraped the old server and am starting new from a fresh install. I have
> put the new drivers from the link you suggested into the neupdate
> directory, but the install chokes when trying to install the ideata.
> It says "The following driver instance failed to load and will be deleted:
> c:\nwupdate\ideata.ham slot=10005 (The device supported by the driver may
> be disabled.)"
>
> This is as far in the installation as I can get. Any suggestions on how
> to load the new ideata.ham (dated 6\6\03) into a netware 5.0 installation?
>

That is not the 'new' ideata.ham -- check out this location:

http://developer.novell.com/devres/storage/drivers/index.html#Novell

[mat...@cesoinc.com]

My mistake on the last post. It is the newest one dated 11/20/03....
I still get the error message below.

Have you seen this error before and how do you get around it?

Thanks for all your help.

[Barry Schnur]

> My mistake on the last post. It is the newest one dated 11/20/03....
> I still get the error message below.

Ah -- OK -- I haven't seen that error myself -- then again, the only work
I've done with IDE hard drives in Netware has been pure 'test' stuff -- I'm
working with a Promise RAID controller for a test at the moment. You might
consider that approach -- you can pick up a TX100 RAID controller (or a
simple TX100 without RAID support I believe) for about $40 via eBAY. It
uses different drivers (provided by Promise) which might take care of this
problem.

[mat...@cesoinc.com]

I am actually using the Promise Ultra 133 TX2. It is a fully Novell
Certified card and I am using the drivers for this card from the novell
developer storage page.

[Barry Schnur]

Interesting -- how about trying the drivers from the Promise web site
instead? I thought you mentioned earlier that you were using the IDEATA
drivers instead of the Fasttrak drivers.

--

[mat...@cesoinc.com]

I have tried just about every combination....
The ULTRA drivers from the Promise Web Site, the ULTRA drivers from the
Novell web site. The IDEATA drivers from the Novell disk, the IDEATA
drivers from the Novell website...

[Barry Schnur]

OK -- I've not messed with large IDE drives on servers -- though I have
used the Promise TX100 RAID for a test with smaller drives.

In *theory* a Promise controller, assuming you have flashed its BIOS
current, should handle the larger drives just fine, even if the motherboard
BIOS doesn't.

That being said, it is *possible* that NW 5.0 won't -- I would think newer
versions of NW would though.