Dell 4600i stuff

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Has anyone had problems of this nature??? I have been trying for hours to
load the Promise SATA /150 drivers onto my wife's Dell 4600i, in order the
install a new Maxtor 250GB ATA133 HDD, but with no success. I've tried from
the floppy, from the CD, downloaded driver from Maxtor, uninstalled and
retried, blah blah blah. When WinXP Sp1a detects the card and asks for the
driver disk, I point it to the necessary file (on whatever disk I have tried
at the time) and from that point on, Windoze just goes into continuous
search mode for the driver without ever installing the damned thing. WTF!!!!
BTW, is the MOBO capable of supporting ATA 133 natively? I can't find
anything in the manual or otherwise that gives the supporting speeds for the
interface.

Mahalo,
Dave

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Did you download the driver file or did it come with the Promise? If you
downloaded it, what is the file suffix?

"DPCpresto" <DPCpresto@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:VINud.3816$N%6.917@trnddc05...
> Has anyone had problems of this nature??? I have been trying for hours to
> load the Promise SATA /150 drivers onto my wife's Dell 4600i, in order the
> install a new Maxtor 250GB ATA133 HDD, but with no success. I've tried
> from
> the floppy, from the CD, downloaded driver from Maxtor, uninstalled and
> retried, blah blah blah. When WinXP Sp1a detects the card and asks for the
> driver disk, I point it to the necessary file (on whatever disk I have
> tried
> at the time) and from that point on, Windoze just goes into continuous
> search mode for the driver without ever installing the damned thing.
> WTF!!!!
> BTW, is the MOBO capable of supporting ATA 133 natively? I can't find
> anything in the manual or otherwise that gives the supporting speeds for
> the
> interface.
>
> Mahalo,
> Dave
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

If you read my message, you'll see that I tried to use both a downloaded
driver from the Maxtor support site, and the driver that came on the CD
included with the new HDD! The downloaded driver was and executable file
that created a floppy, just as the instructions indicated.


"WSZsr" <nospam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:OHOud.39087$bP2.35319@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com...
> Did you download the driver file or did it come with the Promise? If you
> downloaded it, what is the file suffix?
>
> "DPCpresto" <DPCpresto@verizon.net> wrote in message
> news:VINud.3816$N%6.917@trnddc05...
>> Has anyone had problems of this nature??? I have been trying for hours
>> to
>> load the Promise SATA /150 drivers onto my wife's Dell 4600i, in order
>> the
>> install a new Maxtor 250GB ATA133 HDD, but with no success. I've tried
>> from
>> the floppy, from the CD, downloaded driver from Maxtor, uninstalled and
>> retried, blah blah blah. When WinXP Sp1a detects the card and asks for
>> the
>> driver disk, I point it to the necessary file (on whatever disk I have
>> tried
>> at the time) and from that point on, Windoze just goes into continuous
>> search mode for the driver without ever installing the damned thing.
>> WTF!!!!
>> BTW, is the MOBO capable of supporting ATA 133 natively? I can't find
>> anything in the manual or otherwise that gives the supporting speeds for
>> the
>> interface.
>>
>> Mahalo,
>> Dave
>>
>>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Hi!

> If you read my message, you'll see that I tried to use both a downloaded
> driver from the Maxtor support site, and the driver that came on the CD
> included with the new HDD! The downloaded driver was and executable file
> that created a floppy, just as the instructions indicated.

A couple of thoughts at this point:

1. Did the "upgrade" I/O card come bundled with the hard disk? If it did
not, I don't see why you'd have drivers for it on a Maxtor provided CD or
downloadable file. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Maybe that's why
Windows is having a problem? (Just a guess, really...) It really does sound
like you have maybe a "MaxBlast" disk that would aid in installing the drive
in your computer, but not the actual controller card.

2. Do you have to use to the card to use the drive at all? As long as your
Dell's onboard IDE is working and can handle the drive, I'd highly recommend
using it, even if it is not as fast as the card might be. It has been my
experience that a LOT of these IDE cards don't use standard drivers and many
of them have flawed drivers that force the drive's write caching to be
unconditionally enabled. If your controller card is one that does this, you
are begging for disaster. I have found that whenever the write cache setting
is enabled on a Windows 2000 or XP box, there is a very good chance that a
power failure or major software install followed by a shutdown or reboot
will result in the contents of the disk being badly corrupted.

William

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

DPCpresto wrote:
> Has anyone had problems of this nature??? I have been trying for
> hours to load the Promise SATA /150 drivers onto my wife's Dell
> 4600i, in order the install a new Maxtor 250GB ATA133 HDD, but with
> no success. I've tried from the floppy, from the CD, downloaded
> driver from Maxtor, uninstalled and retried, blah blah blah. When
> WinXP Sp1a detects the card and asks for the driver disk, I point it
> to the necessary file (on whatever disk I have tried at the time) and
> from that point on, Windoze just goes into continuous search mode for
> the driver without ever installing the damned thing. WTF!!!! BTW, is
> the MOBO capable of supporting ATA 133 natively? I can't find
> anything in the manual or otherwise that gives the supporting speeds
> for the interface.
>
> Mahalo,
> Dave

Is there an entry in Device Manager for an unknown controller card? If
so, remove it entirely and reboot. Try the installation again. Are
there any special installation requirements for the card mentioned in
the user manual - like installing the driver before installing the card?
Some few hardware drivers must be installed this way. If the card is
installed correctly, then the drive (is it definitely a SATA drive - you
don't say) should be identified correctly. Windows does not have
support for ATA 133 so the support should be mentioned in the controller
card specifications.

Q

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

I just gave up on trying to get the thing to install correctly. And yes, I
did go into device manager and uninstall, several times over, but nothing
ever worked. So, now, I have just installed the drive itself in an external
USB case and it works just fine that way.

Dave



"Quaoar" <quaoar@tenthplanet.net> wrote in message
news6SdnaVmfM1t7CHcRVn-qQ@comcast.com...
> DPCpresto wrote:
> > Has anyone had problems of this nature??? I have been trying for
> > hours to load the Promise SATA /150 drivers onto my wife's Dell
> > 4600i, in order the install a new Maxtor 250GB ATA133 HDD, but with
> > no success. I've tried from the floppy, from the CD, downloaded
> > driver from Maxtor, uninstalled and retried, blah blah blah. When
> > WinXP Sp1a detects the card and asks for the driver disk, I point it
> > to the necessary file (on whatever disk I have tried at the time) and
> > from that point on, Windoze just goes into continuous search mode for
> > the driver without ever installing the damned thing. WTF!!!! BTW, is
> > the MOBO capable of supporting ATA 133 natively? I can't find
> > anything in the manual or otherwise that gives the supporting speeds
> > for the interface.
> >
> > Mahalo,
> > Dave
>
> Is there an entry in Device Manager for an unknown controller card? If
> so, remove it entirely and reboot. Try the installation again. Are
> there any special installation requirements for the card mentioned in
> the user manual - like installing the driver before installing the card?
> Some few hardware drivers must be installed this way. If the card is
> installed correctly, then the drive (is it definitely a SATA drive - you
> don't say) should be identified correctly. Windows does not have
> support for ATA 133 so the support should be mentioned in the controller
> card specifications.
>
> Q
>
>