gigabyte ATA133 mobo problem

[Guest]

I just bought a gigabyte GA-7VRXP Motherboard and Maxtor 60GB ATA133 HDD.

Aim is to use the Promis MBUltra133 PDC20276 controller to get fastest performance from hard drive but the driver installation process is not as described in the manual - it uses the Promise RAID controller and describes updating the SCSI controllers drivers.

On POST the system displays the following:
----------------
MBUltra133 (PDC20276) (tm) BIOS Version 2.20.1.12
(c) 199-2001 Promise technology Inc all rights reserved

Detecting... (and then obviously fails)

MBUltra133 (PDC20276) BIOS is not installed because there are no drives attached.
----------------
followed by a normal boot up of WIN2000.

Tried installing hardware thro system and "got" the SCSI controller looking same as manual in device manager but receive the same message on boot...

gigabyte and maxtor marketing sites are not much help - any ideas anyone?

Any suggestions would be really appreciated.

Thanks

 

[jlanka]

does the drive work on IDE1 (non-RAID IDE port)?

Have you flashed to the latest <A HREF="http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/support/viakt333.htm#link7vrxp" target="_new">BIOS</A>?

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[Guest]

Yes it does.
On POSt it also shows this info - helpful?

PIO mode 4 UDMA mode 6
Onboard RAID, IRQ10
(seems to be along with USB, Ethernet and AGP VGA and everything else too..)

No to the BIOS.. there are 2 new versions dated 26Feb2002/16april2002 (beta) neither referring to HDD.

Just had a thought - and reread a couple of other postings and the manual(embarrassment..) : think the HDD shold be conected to the different IDE connector?

Thanks

 

[jlanka]

for the RAID controller, it's either IDE3 or IDE4.

If you've got it on 1 or 2, that's your problem.

If not, I'd flash the BIOS anyway.

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[Guest]

reconnected to IDE3 and rebooted.
system found D0 60GB Maxtor 6L060L3 Ultra DMA 6
not found D1-D3

normal POST boot screen BUT no HDD shown.
then started looking to floppies and other boot disks

I'll have a go with the BIOS tomorrow night.
Thanks

 

[jlanka]

so you're saying the RAID controller now finds the drive? If so, you've got to create a RAID array to be able to boot off it in the RAID configuration. If you jump it to normal IDE controller config then it should boot OK. You can create a RAID array with just one drive, but I'm not sure whether you'll have to re-init the drive. Hopefully not.

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>