Practical HDD Configuration on K7N2's Promise SATA and NV IDE3

Folks,
There are lots of good fragments on the board about use of IDE3, but not much on total layout of disks for modestly disk intensive applications. Without going to server-type SCSI320 controllers and super-fast drives, here are some questions ---
1a. I'm going to assume until some wise person disuades me, that IDE will just saturate too quickly with good drives.
1b. With the K7N2 architecture, I'm guessing that the Promise chip will pump data on the bus and become less saturated than IDE. Do we know this for sure?
2a. I come from the high end unix world before the days of gigantic storage devices. Back in the day it is an article of faith that disk striping almost always yielded better results.
I'm beginning to wonder about that for non-database PC applications for several reasons. An article that looks at queue depth also reveals that as you add striped drives to an SATA controller, performance may degrade. With just the Promise chip this is probably nit-picking, as were only going to stripe 2 drives. Still one wonders. Here's the paper --
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200406/20040625TCQ_1.html
2b. Is it possible to run the Promise chip as JBOD? This could be really interesting. Can the IDE3 drive run alone, outside the Promise array?
AND FINALLY...
3a. On this board there are many stories of woe about using the NV IDE3, and good bits of info, but nothing complete. How do you build and manage it?? I don't mean ONE drive in the system, but TWO on Promise SATA and one on IDE3.
3b. Also, since it's controlled by NV, is there reason to believe that data will pump through more quickly than with the standard IDE bus (IDE1 and IDE2)??
This should be interesting...
Cheers, u.
Please PM me if you like.

Sorry chaps!
For current sytem see sig below.
Ta, Britt
IRQ 0   System timer   OK
IRQ 1   Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard   OK
IRQ 3   Communications Port (COM2)   OK
IRQ 5   NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management   OK
IRQ 6   Standard floppy disk controller   OK
IRQ 8   System CMOS/real time clock   OK
IRQ 9   Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System   OK
IRQ 12   PS/2 Compatible Mouse   OK
IRQ 13   Numeric data processor   OK
IRQ 14   Primary IDE Channel   OK
IRQ 15   Secondary IDE Channel   OK
IRQ 18   WinXP Promise FastTrak 376/378 (tm) Controller   OK
IRQ 19   SupraExpress 56i   OK
IRQ 19   MSI MS-StarForce GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X (NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X)   OK
IRQ 20   Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller   OK
IRQ 20   NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio Codec Interface   OK
IRQ 21   Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller   OK
IRQ 22   Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller   OK
IRQ 22   NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) MCP Audio Processing Unit (Dolby(R) Digital)   OK

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Duel boot K7N2 Delta using SATA and EIDE

I have a K7N2 Delta MB with SATA running RAID 0, also I have HD pluged into the Primary EIDE cable slot, using SC ( cable select ), everything works fine. What I want to know is if anyone has had any luck using BOOT MAGIC (comes with Patition magic) to duel boot between the SATA and the EIDE drive. Also I have found that once I set the SATA to be bootable AND loaded XP then I was not able to boot from any other device, floppy or EIDE. The floppy works fine when I use it once running on XP. I have the floppy set as the first boot device the EIDE drive c: as second boot device and SCSI as third boot device, the system always boots from SCSI. Any suggestions out there great ones?
Never mind I found the answer.
I took off SCSI from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd boot. enable other boot and all works fine now.

Wonkanoby, You are now officially my hero. Did exactly what you said. IT WORKED. My system screams now. Thanks.
p.s. Have you ever thought about rewriting the manual for MSI. Their documentation was confusing at best.
p.p.s Saw the other reply below about reflashing the bios. I see no need to do that. follow the instructions in the first reply and you should be good to go.

Sorry, BIOS is Rev 1.0, CPU fan RPM still wont show, on Promise SATA and I have no activity led??

Yes, everything is properly connected, CPU fan is on CFAN1 and the HDD is on the Promise and the front panel led connector is properly connected.
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thank you

Ok, this is weird, the HDD led connector was connected as directed in the manual, black (ground) on pin 1 and red (+12) on pin 3, whats weird is that I flipped it upside down (red on pin 1 and black on pin 3) and now it works, that just weird but at least it works now. every other connector works when connected normally, funny that I have to flip the HDD led connector upside down haha.
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Have you heard of that problem??
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Frank

Installing new HDD into an iMac G5 with SATA

Installing new HDD into an iMac G5 with SATA and would like to know how to migrate the old system over to the new drive. Can I use a USB2 external drive, move all the old data, then select the new system as the boot system?

lwolfcc-
Yes.
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Luck-
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I bought the motherboard about a month ago and ive never gotten the HDD LED to work with my SATA hard drive. I have an old WD 5400RPM 40GB in the IDE-1 socket, a LG 24X10X40 CD-RW in IDE-2 and a new WD 120GB drive on the SATA-1 port. The LED works with my other 40GB hard drive, but not with the 120GB SATA hard drive. Any answer on why?

Hi,
This is a known issue on some SATA boards, the drive LED seems to work for some - and not for others. BTW, this is not an MSI only issue. AFAIK, there is no fix for it - unless of course somebody knows better???
At a guess, SATA is quite new (in the general scheme of things) and I don't think they've quite "Ironed out" all the "Teething problems" often seen in new hardware.
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O&O Drive LED
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Axel

[Athlon64] Promise/SATA/Promise/RAID/Promise! What's it all mean?

I've been reading up on some of the RAID information scattered around the Internet, and I've also been reading the booklets bundled with my MSI motherboard. My questions lean more toward the meaning of Promise and its various "forms" (?), and I think these booklets have left some holes.
1) What are the major differences between Promise and VIA Serial ATA setups, other than the HDD LED light (not) functioning?
2) Why does my BIOS allow me to select RAID/SATA from the Promise controller, when Promise is only one choice of Serial ATA setup on my board, as opposed to VIA? Why is RAID offered as an "option" with Serial ATA? (RAID is a way of utilizing the drive, SATA is the drive interface!)
3) "Promise FastTrak 378" or "Promise SATA150 378" controllers...huh? Aren't they both Serial ATA capable? What about Via's controller? What's the difference between the two Promises?
Basically, I'm confused with the rerferences to Promise. Thanks again...

Hi, I'll try to create some clarity here...Promise is a manufacturer of controllers, both add on PCI card controllers and onboard controllers. Your board has 2 drive controllers, the VIA VT8237 Southbridge and the Promise Fasttrack 20378 controller. Both controllers handle SATA and IDE interfaces with hard drives. They both offer you IDE(-RAID) and SATA(-RAID) configurations. Some say the Promise works faster, some say the VIA works faster. Try for yourself to decide which works for you. Now, to answer your questions:
1) The only difference is that the Promise controller is on the boards PCI bus. This might help during overclocking, because PCI frequency would be locked at 33 MHz. Your board doesn't overclock very well, so this is not that big a difference. On both controllers your HDD led should function normally.
2) You can select various settings in your bios to match the installed hard drive configuration, so the controller knows what to look for. RAID configurations come in arrays: RAID 0 = striping mode, RAID 1 = mirroring mode, RAID 0+1 = 4 drives striped + mirrored, JBOD = just a bunch of discs installed. You can setup both controllers, VIA and Promise, in your bios.
3) As mentioned above, you have two controllers: the Promise and the VIA. SATA150 indicates the interface (Serial ATA max. 150 MB/sec). This interface is newer than Parallel ATA (= IDE max. 133 MB/sec) and SCSI (various speeds, very fast). Now, there's also SATA2 (= Serial ATA max. 300 MB/sec). Don't mind all of these speeds too much, a single drive will not reach them.
Hope to have made things a bit more clear...

Error detecting promise sata controller on kt4 ultra

Hello,
I've searched the forum and "the rest" of the internet without finding a solution to my problem.
The problem is: Normally when you boot the kt4-ultra you will have a message saying "FastTrack 376(tm) Bios version 1.00.0.18(c)2002-2005 Promise Technology, Inc." and then either No drive attached to FastTrack Controller, The BIOS is not installed or information about your HDD configuration.
In my case sometimes without any reasonable explaination my computer won't detect the promise fasttrak controller AT ALL! It just jumps right over it, as it didn't excists. This is very strange since it's enabled in the BÌOS settings and it could be detected at the next reboot, or in many cases it wont be detected again for several days
As far as I can see it has nothing to do with the harddrives connected to it, as it happens anyway either with a SATA disk connected, IDE disk or no disks at all....
If anyone could help me out with this problem I'll be very gratefull!

Quote
Originally posted by Fredrik Åsenius
How are your hard disks configured, and your CD/DVD etc?
I've litary tried every possible combination. The problem remains even with no disks or CD/DVD drives installed on the Fasttrak controller or IDE 1/2. Sometimes the controller is detected, sometimes not.
I should point out that if the controller is detected it always find my HDD who's connected to it and it works fine in Windows. But if it's not detected Windows will find a new hardware and try to install drivers to it, but it won't work cause the hardware is reporting an error and Windows will ofcourse not find a disk....
Quote
What operative system do you have? On a quick search I found mostly linux related problems, though I was not too thorough.
I have Windows XP, but I don't think it matters what OS i'm running.
On the searched I've done Im only finding Linux and compability related problems...
I've had this problem for over 6 months now and I'm getting a BIT tired the shitty controller....

Promise SATA controller in XP 64

Hello all,
I have recently installed XP Pro 64. My problem involves the Promise SATA controller. I installed the Promise & Via XP 64 drivers at installation. However, the Promise controller and SATA drive did not appear during installation and the drive is missing in the operating system. All is fine with the VIA controller. The Promise controller appears in the device manager but the hard drive is nowhere to be found. All works fine in XP 32. I’ve been reading the online forums (including MSI’s) and have seen similar problems. Just wondering if anyone has experienced the same problem and has found a work-around? Any input would be deeply appreciated.

Quote
Originally posted by Fredrik Åsenius
How are your hard disks configured, and your CD/DVD etc?
I've litary tried every possible combination. The problem remains even with no disks or CD/DVD drives installed on the Fasttrak controller or IDE 1/2. Sometimes the controller is detected, sometimes not.
I should point out that if the controller is detected it always find my HDD who's connected to it and it works fine in Windows. But if it's not detected Windows will find a new hardware and try to install drivers to it, but it won't work cause the hardware is reporting an error and Windows will ofcourse not find a disk....
Quote
What operative system do you have? On a quick search I found mostly linux related problems, though I was not too thorough.
I have Windows XP, but I don't think it matters what OS i'm running.
On the searched I've done Im only finding Linux and compability related problems...
I've had this problem for over 6 months now and I'm getting a BIT tired the shitty controller....

Best practice for configuring virtual drive on UCS

Hi,
I have two C210 M2 Server with LSI 6G MegaRAID 9261-8i Card with 10 hard drives of each 135GB. When I tried the automatic selection for the RAID configuration, the system has created one virtual drive with RAID 6. My concern is what the best practice to configure virtual drive? Is it RAID 1 and RAID5 or all in one drive with RAID6? Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks.

Since you are planning to have UC apps on the server, Voice applications have specified their recommendations here.
http://docwiki.cisco.com/wiki/Tested_Reference_Configurations_%28TRC%29
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RAID 1 - First two HDDs for VMware
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HTH
Padma

Promise SATA problem

Thanks to both of you. I've tried hitting ctrl-F but nothing appears. I can get into the Amibios no problem and have set the Promise controller to SATA only.
After reading what you've both said let me say what my set up is. I have an 80Gb Maxtor ATA drive on IDE1 and two DVD drives on IDE2. I have two 160Gb SATA drives on the ICH5 Southbridge controller. I have an internal zip drive on IDE3. I have nothing on the Promise SATA controllers but will do one day, I hope. I can see everything but the zip drive.
Can I only get into ctrl-F if there is something attached to the Promise SATA controllers?
I have to tell you I'm a bit clueless about RAID but don't think I need it. I'll check up on it later but right now I just need a working system.
Thanks.

Just did a compleate format and reinstall of my windows drive, wanted to start over. I was having a few problems with other software, and I wanted to to work with a clean slate.
Ok, I have 5 SATA drives all plugged into my motherboard. 4 are in the AMD SB600 sockets, each running in IDE mode. I have one more drive, formated, that I want to install in one of the 2 remaining Promise sockets,.
The drivers for the Promise are currently uninstalled, and the 5th drive is not seen because of it. The only drivers availible on the K9A2 PLAT driver page are for RAID. Previously, I have tried to install these drivers, and then configure the drive in the socket to run as IDE, but with no luck.
My problem boils down to, 'can I install any drives into these sockets as IDE', 'do I need drivers to get ide to work', 'where can I find these drivers', 'do these drivers work for vista x64 (OS is not running from this socket)'.
Sorry for the ranting, it has been a bad day for me.

Promise SATA problems?

I'musing the onboard promise SATA controller for my 160Gb storage drive. As of last night, I went to start my machine up and it makes it to the promise controller's bios screen and is detecting.............................. ..........forever, then It finaly times out and I get this error: "Bios couldn't detect your setup, Check your system again". It did this 4 or 5 times before I changed to the 2nd SATA connector then it booted up. During this time I couldn't get the setup prompt in the POST screen to go to -->GO. Do you think the promise controller could just take a crap like that?
***edit***
This happens regaurdless of which SATA connector the drive is on. I'm Starting to think it's the HDD taking a crap. Almost like it's not seeing the drive info but it knows something is connected.

I've been messing with it for a while and it seems to be my USB dev's. After I remove all of them it work everytime. Makes sense, I'v been hearing the tone you get when you connect a USB dev intermittly. I have a viewsonic usb keyboard, logitech wireless optical mouse, and epson photo R300 printer. Any known issues with these devs. I have a feeling it could be my mouse, I've noticed it studdering a lot lately, much like the battery is about dead. I have ps2 adapters, do you think they may work? I'll update later, there is much partying to be done.

K7N2 Delta2-LSR - SATA disk does not boot with IDE disk connected

I have K7N2 Delta2-LSR with SATA 160GB drive and CD burner connected as primary master.
When I'm connecting any IDE hard disk, the mainboard detects it corectly, but I'm not able to boot from SATA drive.
I tried to turn off IDE drive detection in BIOS (set [None] instead of [Auto]) and SATA boots!!! And Windows XP and Linux can see both disks!!!
Is it a BUG in BIOS?
Maciek
K7N2 Delta2-LSR (with latest BIOS Sep 18, 2004)
Athlon XP (Barton) 2800+
SATA drive WD 160GB
GF4MX440
FSB333, DDRAM 512MB/400
PSU 350W, works stable with 2 HDs and CDRW.

Strange my board boots fine from SATA with a PATA HDD connected. XP and Linux will see any disks connected to the motherboard and powered up in your system even if disabled in the bios apart from those connected to a separate raid controller which should be enabled. Both these operating systems address the hardware directly once their drivers are loaded so will ignore the settings you have in the bios. This behaviour is normal and not a bios bug. The main boot disk has of course to be enabled in the bios for the boot loader to operate. The boot priority with the new south bridge is PATA first followed by SATA and XP uses this too. To ensure that XP boots from SATA properly the PATA drive must be disconnected during the install process. You also need to ensure that the SATA disk is the only active partition connected to your system. If the PATA disk has been used to boot an operating system previously there may still be an active partition present on the drive. If that is the case removing the active partition should cure the problem but if the present arrangement works for you then fine.

K7N2 Delta & Promise Ultra100

Im having some problems getting a Promise Ultra100 PCI ide card working. First of all the card would hang the boot sequence on "verifying dmi pool". I upgraded the fw on the card and now i get past this. The problem I have now is the bios is attempting to boot from the drives connected to the utlra100 card instead of my Sata drive which contains my OS (I get the NTLDR missing and attempts to boot from cd but not sata). I think the problem lies in the BIOS boot option being SCSI for the sata ports as well as for PCI ide controllers. Is there anyway of being able to run two promise controllers with this board and being able to specify which one to boot from?

Quote from: Fredrik Åsenius on 28-February-07, 07:28:19
Sorry about the mATX PSU mix-up!
Why should the motherboard BIOS see a difference between the two booting devices?
That's fine!
Well most recent bios show Sata as Sata and not a generic SCSI device. The fact that both the Ultra100 and the onboard Fastrack Sata are classed as SCSI in the boot order is causing the bios to attempt to boot from the Ultra100 interface ignoring the onboard Sata...
Here's something I found in the FAQ on the Promise website:
287 How do I boot from the Ultra100 if I already have a SCSI card in the system?
Cause: Booting from Ultra 100 w/additonal SCSI Controller in System, BIOS, Configuration, PCI Slot preference, CMOS BIOS settings.
Solution: If you have an actual SCSI controller in the system, the computer will attempt to boot from whichever controller is seen first. To get one controller to be seen before another, you must get it’s BIOS to load first. Manipulating the BIOS address that the card is set to use normally does this. However, the Ultra100 is fully PnP. This means that only the PnP BIOS on the motherboard can control which resources our card uses. In most cases, the PCI slot with the highest priority will be assigned the lowest BIOS address. On most motherboards, the PCI slot with the highest priority is PCI slot #1.
Still doesn't help as the fastrack sata controller is onboard, and in theory it should be detected 1st....

Howto: PROMISE/SATA on Linux!

Hello Linux users, want to get your PROMISE SATA Disk controller working on Linux?
There are two options, option two it proberly best for beginners/newbes!
Option One: Patch the kernel (Tested on 2.4.23)
Download this file: http://www.busybox.net/pdc-ultra-1.00.0.10.tgz
Login as su - (root)
Copy or move it to:
/usr/src/
And Untar with:
tar fzxv pdc-ultra-1.00.0.10.tgz
then you will have pdc-ultra.patch in /usr/src/
Then patch your kernel:
cat pdc-ultra.patch | patch -p0 -N
Then you will get patching file ... blah blah...
patching file linux-2.4.23/drivers/scsi/Makefile
More......
When done, just goto: /usr/src/linux , configure your kernel.
Make sure SCSI Disk support , SCSI Generic support is Built-in. under SCSI Support.
Then you will find the Promise SATA Driver under SCSI Low level drivers, make it a Module or Built-in.
Then install the kernel and modules, reboot.
Login as yourself, then su - (root)
Now to test if it works:
cat /proc/scsi/pdc-ultra/*
If you get something like this:
PROMISE SATA150 Series Linux Driver v1.00.0.10
Adapter1 - SATA 378 [ IRQ17 ]
Drive -
3 : WDC WD1200JD-00FYB0 Channel2/Master 120034MB UDMA5
(Your drive should be listed here)
Then it woks, congrats!
And you'll find your drive under /dev/sda (Most likely)
fdisk /dev/sda and the press "p"+"enter" to print partitons if you have any!
The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 14593.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
Command (m for help):
Option two: Build a kernel module from the source.
Note!
You must build a kernel with scsi support first, as above without the Promis Drivers, as we are not patchig the kernel.
Then download this file:
http://www.promise.com/support/file/driver/1_SATALINUXSRC1.00.0.8.zip
Copy or move it to /tmp/
unzip 1_SATALINUXSRC1.00.0.8.zip
then cd ultra-1.0.8/
Then run following:
make clean
make
make install
This should build and install a kernel module.
Then run:
insmod pdc-ultra (PC may "stop responding" a few sec then return to normal)
Now to test if it works:
cat /proc/scsi/pdc-ultra/*
If you get something like this:
PROMISE SATA150 Series Linux Driver v1.00.0.10
Adapter1 - SATA 378 [ IRQ17 ]
Drive -
3 : WDC WD1200JD-00FYB0 Channel2/Master 120034MB UDMA5
(Your drive should be listed here)
Then it woks, congrats!
And you'll find your drive under /dev/sda (Most likely)
fdisk /dev/sda and the press "p"+"enter" to print partitons if you have any!
The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 14593.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
Command (m for help):
This was made in the hope of helping others, so don't yell at me if you can't get it to work. Ask me a Question instead and I will try to help you as the best I can. :hypecrite:
Cheers,
Kevin
-- Gentoo Linux roxx!

Hi !
Check with these pdf's
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/2498bf90-0201-0010-4884-83568752a857
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/6945da7d-0c01-0010-1792-dd7b5d87235c
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/d149ec34-0d01-0010-4791-db4f1d864576
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/607ebbd5-6555-2a10-e285-c2cbec4ebafd
for these JARs msbase.jar, mssqlserver.jar, msutil.jar Check these pdf's
https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/70ffd890-0201-0010-708f-d5dad2dfcf3a
Find this doc for JDBC drivers-https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/servlet/prt/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/3867a582-0401-0010-6cbf-9644e49f1a10
(msbase.jar, mssqlserver.jar, msutil.jar).
Driver:
com.microsoft.jdbc.sqlserver.SQLServerDriver
Connection for MS SQL Server:
jdbc:microsoft:sqlserver://<server>:1433;databaseName=<dbname>
If you are using the new SQL Server 2005 jdbc driver (sqljdbc.jar). Setup is basically the same, except the driver is now:
com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver
And the URL is slightly different as well:
jdbc:sqlserver://host:1433;DatabaseName=name
Check This thread discuss the same for these jars
MS SQL Server jdbc Driver installation on XI
how to connect sql server through WAS
Thanks!!

K7N2 Delta LISR SATA problem

Can anyone tell me regarding the K7N2 Delta LISR SATA HDD...
do we have to create array first b4 installing win98/winxp?
I can't find the way installing without creating an array. I remember it's not required for KT6 Delta?
after creating array, in fdisk mode it run so slowly!!! Is it normal?
anyone help is appreciated!!!
p/s: it's single SATA 80GB Seagate HDD

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threadid=50531&sid=

Practical HDD Configuration on K7N2's Promise SATA and NV IDE3

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