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Maxtor/Promise ATA133 problem

Last response: in Storage
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Anonymous

Ok, like many of you other storage freaks out there, I rushed to buy one of "them new fangled" 160 Gig drives from Maxtor. Now.. on to installing it.

I have a Dell Dimension system
P4 1.6 GHz
384MB Dell / Crucial PC133 RAM
etc.. w/
1:1:1 20 Gig Maxtor on IDE controller 1 (integrated), channel 1, master
1:1:2 61.4 Gig Maxtor on IDE 1:1:slave
1:2:1 CD-Rom on IDE 1:2:Master
1:2:2 CD-RW on IDE 1:2:slave
2:1:1 and a 45 Western Digital HD on IDE 2(ATA100 PCI card):1:Master

Here's my problem.

I removed my ATA 100 card and popped in "that new fangled" ATA133 card, and removed all my drives (to prevent corruption while installing the new drive.. My S.O.P. for installing a drive).

Next, I attached the 160GB HD and attempted to boot. Once it got past the HD detection on the card, it didn't boot (or even attempt to further boot)

hmm...

Maybe a BIOS problem?

I disconnected the 160, attached all my other drives (except the 45 gig that was attached to the ATA100 PCI card), booted up, downloaded the BIOS update from Dell, shut down, and installed it.

I proceeded to reconnect the ATA133 card and 160Gig drive, only to have it halt after the drive detection.


Well, to spare you all the other stuff I tried, I'll just make this story short:

My Dell won't boot if a drive is attached to the ATA133 card (in any PCI slot) but will boot if there are no drives attached [to the card].

I tried the card in my older 400MHz machine and it booted fine with the drive attached to the ATA133 card, (the MB Bios wouldn't accept it as larger than 137Gig, but I'm sure if I updated the bios [its an intel SE440BX board] it would fix the problem) but that doesn't do me much good, since I want the drive on my newer machine.


Any thoughts or ideas? They would be sincerely appreciated.

More about : maxtor promise ata133 problem

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What OS are you going to be using?

It sounds like with that ATA133 drive connected to the 133 controller that it's trying to boot up to that drive on the card. If it's not partitioned and formatted then it's not going to go anywhere. To see if that's what it's doing, try partitioning and formatting the 160GB hard drive w/ system files (depending on the OS this may not be possible). I didn't see any information on how you partitioned and formatted the drive.

I don't understand what you mean by booting if there's nothing on this drive. If you put it on your older system and it boots, what do you mean? Boots to what?

<font color=red>I aM WE ToDD DiD.</font color=red><font color=white> I aM </font color=white><font color=blue>SOfA KING WE ToDD DiD</font color=blue>
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Did I say you were dumb? :wink: Nope!

Boot sequence? Have you tried any other drive on this ATA133 controller to see if it will boot to a floppy or anything?

<font color=red>I aM WE ToDD DiD.</font color=red><font color=white> I aM </font color=white><font color=blue>SOfA KING WE ToDD DiD</font color=blue>
Anonymous

My boot sequence is: floppy, HD, CD-Rom
But Dell, in some stroke of brilliance, added a Hotkey (F12) that you can press on bootup to boot to any device that you have installed.

Normally whenever the machine boots, it runs through the regular tests, then the add-on card detects the drives, and then it goes on to the OS (or, if I hit F12 before the HD tests, it would give me the "select boot device menu")

I tried another drive on the card, to no avail :-(

<pre>I tried another drive on the card, to no avail :-(</pre><p> I can't make since of that? Do you mean that you don't have another drive to try on the card, or you have tried it and it didn't work?

If you don't have another drive to try on the card it's hard to say if the card is causing the problem or if the drive is the cause. If you tried another drive and it still has the same problem then that would at least tell you that the drive isn't the problem and to try checking the card itself. If it was me I would put the card in the first PCI under the video card and remove any other existing cards.

<font color=red>I aM WE ToDD DiD.</font color=red><font color=white> I aM </font color=white><font color=blue>SOfA KING WE ToDD DiD</font color=blue>
Anonymous

Well I deffinately don't have a lack of drives ;-) The computer will not boot with any drive connected to the card.

The problem is neither the card nor the drive. They worked fine in my 400MHz. Something is wrong on the Dell side of the street.

I tried the card in the first slot (closest to the processor), since that would be the obvious choice. But since I had no luck there, I tried it in all of the others, too

Then I think you solved your own problem. It's a problem with the card in an OEM machine. :smile:

<font color=red>I aM WE ToDD DiD.</font color=red><font color=white> I aM </font color=white><font color=blue>SOfA KING WE ToDD DiD</font color=blue>

The card needs drivers, but in the OS. He doesn't get to that point.

<font color=red>I aM WE ToDD DiD.</font color=red><font color=white> I aM </font color=white><font color=blue>SOfA KING WE ToDD DiD</font color=blue>

That is odd as it works with an ata 100 controller. Just for kicks what happens if you attach th drive to the ata 100 contoller, can you fdisk it there? do yo have any options in your bios for ofboard IDE controllers?

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!
Anonymous

Woo Hoo! I got it working!

I went to the promise website and downloaded the newest BIOS. I went to my 400MHz and flashed the card (since I couldn't boot with it hooked up in my new machine) and now it works flawlessly!

so just a tip to anyone who gets one of these Promise cards: download the latest flash bios update.

Thanks for all your help!
-"Excited in LA" :-)
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