BIOS and Driver Problem?

[Keebler Elf]

I have a new Promise FastTrak TX 2300 adaptor card for my computer to enable me to use SATA with my mobo, which only supports IDE.

I have plugged the card in and Windows tells me I have new hardware and asks for drivers. I don't have an installation CD or diskette. Auto detect doesn't work.

I went to the Promise website and here are the downloads:
http://www.promise.com/support/download/download2_eng.asp?productID=136&category=all&os=100

I don't know which set of drivers to use. When I boot up, the screens fly by so quick that I can't write down the BIOS version but I can tell that it's different on two different screens during bootup. When I hit delete and go into BIOS, at the very bottom of the screen it says v.02.54. Is that the BIOS version I'm looking for?

On the website, there is a 32 bit driver and a 64 bit driver but I don't know which one to use. There's also UP2 and SP2 drivers.

Can anyone help?

 

[Mack Bolan]

Keebler
My motherboard is made by ASUS and they have a utility that you down load and it scans your BIOS. It tells you what version you have. Maybe you should check your motherboard maker and see if you can do some sort of scan.

 

[Keebler Elf]

I have ASUS as well. I'll see if I can find it...

Nope. Must be specific to your mobo. Mine is a P4R800-VM and there's no BIOS checker. There's updaters, but no checkers.

 

[hunter001]

Windows XP

Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools ->System Information -> System Summary -> Bios Version/Date

Cheers

 

[joebear]

go to control panel > classic view > system > device manager > hardware tab >scsi adapters and raid controllers > promise IDE controller > right click and either scan for hardware changes or update driver.

rather than use the autodetect.

should work.

Edit # 2

obviously you should be connected to the internet for the scan for hardware changes to get the proper driver.

 

[joebear]

Windows XP

Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools ->System Information -> System Summary -> Bios Version/Date

Cheers

That is the BIOS for the motherboard not the BIOS for the Promise controller which he needs to know to install the right driver. The drivers he needs to install depends on what BIOS is on the Promise Controller.

for one thing its not the 64 bit driver that is for XP 64.

Install this driver then update it.

http://www.promise.com/upload/Support/Driver/2_ft_tx2300_4300_2200_4200_windrv_whql_1.00.0.36.zip

FastTrak TX2300/4300/2200/2300 Windows Driver 165.2KB 1.00.0.36 Windows 2005/4/8

Description
-This is the initial release version of the FastTrak TX2300/TX4300 Windows Driver
-Microsoft WHQL logo driver for Windows XP/2003

 

[joebear]

last alternative is to install the latest BIOS for the Promise Controller then install the latest driver.

BIOS
http://www.promise.com/upload/Support/BIOS/1_ft-tx2300-bios_v2.5.0.3122.zip

FastTrak TX2300 BIOS V2.5.0.3122 105.02KB v2.5.0.3122 Windows 2006/8/18
Description
Update BIOS.
WARNING Please review updated instructions for additional information

DRIVER
http://www.promise.com/upload/Support/Driver/1_ft-tx2300-2200-windrv-whql_v2.06.0.318.zip

Driver for FastTrak TX2300 v2.06.0.318 237.72KB v2.06.0.318 Windows 2006/8/18
Description
This driver is to be used with BIOS version 2.5.0.3122 or newer

 

[joebear]

to check your BIOS version on the Promise Controller.

Boot your system. If this is the first time you have booted with the FastTrak TX2200/2300 or TX4200/4300 RAID Controller card and drives installed, the Promise onboard BIOS will display the following screen.

FastTrak TX4300 (tm) BIOS Version 2.00.0.xx
Copyright (c) 2003 Promise Technology, Inc.
Updated in 2004

 

[Keebler Elf]

Looks like I've got the card and drivers installed properly. Windows detects it and recognizes the drivers. I no longer get the new hardware popup on startup.

Now I'm connecting the drives. We'll see how that goes...

 

[Keebler Elf]

My new hard drive is detected by Windows under Device Manager but not accessible thru Explorer. Anyone who has a minute, could you take a look at the manual (see link) and refer to the FastBuild Utility (chapter 4).

http://www.promise.com/upload/Support/Manual/FastTrak_TX_Series_User_v3.2.pdf

From my understanding, the drive cannot be used until initialized with FastBuild. I have to hit F9 when I get the popup during booting and that's where I'm confused...

It talks about logical drives. Is this just another name for partitions? That's what I think they're talking about.

I'd like my new 500 GB drive to be broken down into 2 or 3 partitions. A small one for any potential OS down the line, and then maybe one or two other partitions (probably depending on whether there's any problem with having a single 475 GB partition??? i.e., Windows' 140 GB limitation...).

I don't want any RAID functionality so I think I just assign the drive as JBOD, but I'm not sure and it's really confusing (at least to me!). Do I have to set up partitions with the FastBuild Utility and not with Windows' Disk Management?

This is for the new drive (I'm installing one at a time). I still have my old SATA drive that I need to connect to the new SATA adaptor card and that drive has data on it so it can't be formatted. Will this be a problem?

 

[WoodPeckr]

Believe logical drives refer to any partitions and HDDs you may have in use.
It doesn't matter what utility you use to partition a drive. I liked the utility that came with Seagate HDDs, it was very fast and easy to use.

 

[Keebler Elf]

I like Western Digital's utility as well. It may just be the whole RAID thing and my adaptor card, with partitions coming later in Windows. But it's not very clear to me.

I don't know how a newbie would ever be able to figure it out from the manual. I've done a fair bit of computers (by no means am I an expert) but the manual doesn't seem to really address just using a hard drive as a simple data storage device without all the redundancy features.

 

[joebear]

My new hard drive is detected by Windows under Device Manager but not accessible thru Explorer. Anyone who has a minute, could you take a look at the manual (see link) and refer to the FastBuild Utility (chapter 4).

http://www.promise.com/upload/Support/Manual/FastTrak_TX_Series_User_v3.2.pdf

From my understanding, the drive cannot be used until initialized with FastBuild. I have to hit F9 when I get the popup during booting and that's where I'm confused...

It talks about logical drives. Is this just another name for partitions? That's what I think they're talking about.

I'd like my new 500 GB drive to be broken down into 2 or 3 partitions. A small one for any potential OS down the line, and then maybe one or two other partitions (probably depending on whether there's any problem with having a single 475 GB partition??? i.e., Windows' 140 GB limitation...).

I don't want any RAID functionality so I think I just assign the drive as JBOD, but I'm not sure and it's really confusing (at least to me!). Do I have to set up partitions with the FastBuild Utility and not with Windows' Disk Management?

This is for the new drive (I'm installing one at a time). I still have my old SATA drive that I need to connect to the new SATA adaptor card and that drive has data on it so it can't be formatted. Will this be a problem?

since you don't want raid, jbod is fine. That is the only time you need to use the FastBuild Utility is to set JBOD.

it doesn't matter what utility you use to partition the drive.

don't worry about the 140 GB limitation thats what the drivers and windows update is for. If you set the partition to one big partition and thru explorer you only get 140 GB then you can always go back and make smaller paritions. I doubt you will have this problem.

as for the old sata drive with the data on it you don't have to to anything but attach to the controller and you can access the data thru explorer.

it's only the new drive you have to initialize.

now you have to get windows to recognize the drive. easy

go to

control panel > classic view > adminstrative tools > computer management > disk management > select drive and make active and format.

 

[Keebler Elf]

Hmmm, Disk Management lists the drive as unknown and not initialized. 465 GB is recognized but it's unallocated. The drive is not listed in the top window but is listed in the bottom window.

Unlike the other drives listed, right-clicking doesn't allow me to do anything other than look at the properties.

There doesn't appear to be an activation option...

I checked the Western Digital website for their utility installer but it's for EIDE drives not SATA.

 

[joebear]

Hmmm, Disk Management lists the drive as unknown and not initialized. 465 GB is recognized but it's unallocated. The drive is not listed in the top window but is listed in the bottom window.

Unlike the other drives listed, right-clicking doesn't allow me to do anything other than look at the properties.

There doesn't appear to be an activation option...

I checked the Western Digital website for their utility installer but it's for EIDE drives not SATA.

There is an activation option !!!

In the bottom window where the drives are listed as drive 0, drive 1, etc in a grey box.

CLICK ON THE GREY BOX OR DRIVE LETTER BOX BESIDE GREY BOX > THEN RIGHT CLICK > make partition active. then format.

you will have one big drive.

There is no advantage to partitioning the drives anymore as the only real reason to partition a drive was the windows limitation. Even if you did partition the drive what is the real difference than having separate directories for you data and windows accessing that data either in a parititon or one big drive, no advantage, imho.

 

[Keebler Elf]

DOH!!! My bad.

Got it running just like you said.

I've gotten into the habit of creating a smaller partition for Windows so that if my Windows craps out on me (which has happened in the past), I can just reformat the partition and reinstall Windows on it. Otherwise, if I wanted to wipe the drive and start fresh, I'd lose all my other data.

One drive down, one to go!

 

[baci2004]

That is a good idea Keeb as long as you make the partition large enough (60 gigs min). A better idea is to keep the OS on a separate drive completely.

 

[WoodPeckr]

I've gotten into the habit of creating a smaller partition for Windows so that if my Windows craps out on me (which has happened in the past), I can just reformat the partition and reinstall Windows on it. Otherwise, if I wanted to wipe the drive and start fresh, I'd lose all my other data.

Been doing the same thing.
Split a 120HD into 3, 40GB drives.
Then split the C drive in half, with 20GB for XP and 20GB for Ubuntu.
Ubuntu makes you share the C drive on a dual boot setup.
Fedora and other linux distros have to be installed on any separate partition other than the C drive. The other 2, 40GB partitions are for storage. Windows only recognizes 100GB. The 20GB partition with Ubuntu is 'unknown' to XP but when running linux, linux recognizes all 120GB and shows all files on the HDD! Linux uses a different file system that windows shows as 'unknown'.
Another advantage to this is whenever you have to defrag XP, it only takes minutes instead of hours because I only have to defrag 20GB instead of 120GB. Anything I want to save goes onto the other partitions.
Linux is superior here, since you never have to defrag linux.

 

[Keebler Elf]

That is a good idea Keeb as long as you make the partition large enough (60 gigs min).

Why so much? The recommendations I've got are normally around 10-15 GB. I only up it to 20 GB just in case. 60 GB seems too much. It would be enough to tempt me to store data on it, which I don't want to do.

 

[Keebler Elf]

A big shout out to all those who offered assistance (especially joebear). All drives up and running.

Thanks!