Promise 378 RAID controller wierdness

Motherboard: MS-6728 865PE Neo2
Main BIOS: AMI v2.5 29th Sep 2004
Promise 378 BIOS: v1.00.0.27
Disks connected to promise S-ATA RAID connectors: 2 x Seagate ST2500630 500 Gb SATA2
Serious instability in Promise 378 raid. Over a few cold reboots, can get each of the following in the BIOS screen, with no way of predicting which:
RAID OK and functional
Channel 1 fail array critical
Channel 2 fail array critical
I have replaced SATA leads, swapped the disk connectors around, and beefed up the power supply to 850 Watts, but with no joy, and this is before we even get into windows.
If the array actually does identify OK and XP boots, trying to format the drive gives lots of these device timeouts in the system event log:
The device, \Device\Scsi\fasttx2k1, did not respond within the timeout period.
I have downloaded the lowlevel drive utility S/W from the Seagate website, and both drives have checked out OK when connected through the 'normal' ICH5 SATA connectors..
So I've basically I've bought 1 Tb of disk space and an 850W power supply and can't do anything with it. Are the any issuse with these BIOS versions? Any help/suggestions all gratefully received.
Many thanks,
Tony

Yep - both drives got the long version of the Seagate Disk Tools test, and both passed without a hitch. That's five hours of my life I'll never get back.
Anyway - the Promise TX2300 RAID card arrived yesterday, so I disabled the motherboard Promise in the BIOS, installed the card in a spare PCI slot (my last one!), and connected the drives. It turns out that this card also wont recognise the cards at 3 Mb/s, but they worked instantly when the drive jumper was replaced to limit them to 1.5 Mb/s. Partitioned and formatted I now have a working 2 x 500 Gb RAID 1, though I'm going to leave it a week before I move anything important onto it.... er, 'just in case'.
To summarise, the motherboard Promise and this new Promise RAID card use different silicon so their implementations could be different, but neither would talk to the drives at 3 Mb/s. I strongly suspect the Seagate drives have a SATA2 problem. I could easily be wrong of course, but I'm off to the Seagate forums now to try and pin it down.
Dufflepod.

Similar Messages

Promise 378 - RAID 0 - Recovery settings required

I have a K8T NEO FISR motherboard with two Samsung 80gb SATA drives connected in RAID 0. Things were going along fine for the last several months and suddenly a couple of days ago, something went wrong and one of my drives dropped out of the array. Yes, it was stupid not having a current back-up of my hard drive, but regardless I am now trying to recover my files. They seem to be there, and a couple of different programs I'm playing with seem to be able to recover the files but they are corrupted. In looking at the files, especially JPG's it seems like the way the files are meshed is incorrect, and so I'm trying to find the default settings for the Promise 378 RAID 0 configuration.
I'm trying a program called File Scavenger and its asking for:
First Sector for both drives
Striping Block Size - I believe this is 128kb per the information displayed in the Promise 378 raid configuration
Data Blocks per Parity Group
Boot Sector - defaults to 319 but not sure if this is correct
From the way the pictures look, I think perhaps the setting that is causing me the most trouble is the First Sector location for the second drive... but being able to confirm all settings would be rather nice also.
Any help or suggestions are appreciated,
Cheers,
Arba

Yep - both drives got the long version of the Seagate Disk Tools test, and both passed without a hitch. That's five hours of my life I'll never get back.
Anyway - the Promise TX2300 RAID card arrived yesterday, so I disabled the motherboard Promise in the BIOS, installed the card in a spare PCI slot (my last one!), and connected the drives. It turns out that this card also wont recognise the cards at 3 Mb/s, but they worked instantly when the drive jumper was replaced to limit them to 1.5 Mb/s. Partitioned and formatted I now have a working 2 x 500 Gb RAID 1, though I'm going to leave it a week before I move anything important onto it.... er, 'just in case'.
To summarise, the motherboard Promise and this new Promise RAID card use different silicon so their implementations could be different, but neither would talk to the drives at 3 Mb/s. I strongly suspect the Seagate drives have a SATA2 problem. I could easily be wrong of course, but I'm off to the Seagate forums now to try and pin it down.
Dufflepod.

KT4 Ultra (6590) need update of the Promise SATA RAID Controller PDC20376

The last Bios update AMI 1.4 for the KT4 Ultra (6590) have built in the bios version 1.00.0.18 for the PDC20376 (Promise 376).
I can configure 2 maxtor (6E040T0) sata1 in a raid0 array and it works under WinXP SP3,
but the 2 drives are working in UDMA5 according to the FastBuild Utility when the motherboard specifications talks about 150Mb (SATA1).
It's not an OS problem because the FastBuild Utility at Bios startup show the UDMA5 mode for HDD.
It's not a Maxtor 6E040T0 (SATA1) problem because have no jumper to set.
The Promise support center don't provide support for built in raid controller but the responce was that it's related to a known bios issue of the controller, so i have to update.
For the last Bios version for the S150 TX4 controller look at:
http://promise.com/support/download/download2_eng.asp?productId=108&category=all&os=100&go=GO
It's impossible to update the bios with the promise tool because the controller is integrated in the motherboard.
I read for example than on the motherboard K7N2 Delta-ILSR the bios version of the Promise 376 controller is 1.00.0.21:
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=92756.msg665966#msg665966
I think the only solution is a modding bios, where i have to replace only the Promise controller bios but:
1) The tool amibcp.exe can't open the A6590VMS.140 AMI bios (renamed .rom), i don't know why!!!
2) What promise controller bios rom file is good?
Can anyone out there help . . . please ?

This is my results compared to my other UDMA6 HDD on IDE1, HDTach long bench stop with "Read Error" and only quick bench works.
The version of the Controller driver under WinXP-SP3 is 1.0.1.29 and I configured the driver in the PAM Utility with:
"Driver Write Cache" enabled and "Write Back" as cache settings (The 2 Maxtor SATA1 in RAID have 2MB of cache, but i don't know How many cache have the controller!!).
The Burst Speed is too strange!!! quick bench error?
I made it so your image is clickable.
-Frankenputer

Installing Windows XP Pro on Promise 133 RAID

After much playing about heres the outcome.
The crux seemed to be that I couldn't make the array active. FDISK on a boot disk told me that I couldn't make a disk active that was not the first. I looked at the the first and I found a 100Mb ATAPI ZIP drive. Unplugged the IDE cable and now on reboot the array was the first to FDISK. I then booted off the XP CD installed and this time it stuck. After installation replugged them all back - works.
One problem I did not explain was that when I installed on IDE 0 (M/B) and tried to RAID 1 that drive it constantly failed at 6% and went critical. The drives are new so I rechecked them with S/W of the MAXTOR site and these checked as perfect. I didn't try to explain this as it all installed OK but I wonder if the ZIP interfered with the BIOS program?
UPDATE*****************
In XP FASTCHECK still fails at 6% though only hangs the utility. Scheduling has been disabled now. Is this a known issue? and will it rebuild the mirror in the case of HD failure with new drive?

Quote
Originally posted by David Santon
After much playing about heres the outcome.
The crux seemed to be that I couldn't make the array active. FDISK on a boot disk told me that I couldn't make a disk active that was not the first. I looked at the the first and I found a 100Mb ATAPI ZIP drive. Unplugged the IDE cable and now on reboot the array was the first to FDISK. I then booted off the XP CD installed and this time it stuck. After installation replugged them all back - works.
One problem I did not explain was that when I installed on IDE 0 (M/B) and tried to RAID 1 that drive it constantly failed at 6% and went critical. The drives are new so I rechecked them with S/W of the MAXTOR site and these checked as perfect. I didn't try to explain this as it all installed OK but I wonder if the ZIP interfered with the BIOS program?
UPDATE*****************
In XP FASTCHECK still fails at 6% though only hangs the utility. Scheduling has been disabled now. Is this a known issue? and will it rebuild the mirror in the case of HD failure with new drive?
The problems I encountered were very similar-1st was M/S multimedia K/B has an "F" key lock off by default(best to use a cheap K/B with out it) no more than 256 megs of ram XP expands the install beyond 1.6gig(I had 3 strips of 512 it grabbed 4.5gigs from the harddrive from a 15gig)only 1 cdrom pin as master on IDE#1 and a floppy drive.Zip and LS120 drives for some reason are more of master than Atapi drives(cd-cdrw-dvd,etc.)if you have a burner make it a master with another Atapi as a slave its better for burning.If you run more than 2 harddrives with promise lite you have to go to their website and get promise 133 raid controller driver for the floppy disk instead of using the 1 you made from the M/B CD(used when it says press F6 to install SCSI or external controller and asks for the floppy in drive"A") . Reformat the harddrives "F"disk with them on the IDE #1+2 set to masters or c/s deleting drives with extended non-dos 1st reformat both drives-do not make any active drives-your CNTRL"F" screen will do that-Bios screen set to failsafe defaults "Y" enter then Optimized "Y" enter- SCSI or Raid set to raid 1st boot CD rom rest- Raid if you have the Pentium board you may have to set them HD"0" make them all Raid or HD"0" after XP is done.My board on the perph.screen has where you enable the secondary IDE and set it as ATA or Raid is what you want some PCI slots share IRQs with raid controler-MY 1st,2nd & 3rd PCIs are not used.

Promise 378 SATA Raid question

Can someone tell me if my SATA drives are setup correctly given the details below? The only driver that works is the FastTrak 378 (not the SATA 378 driver). I want to make sure I am taking full advantage of my SATA drives. In the Promise setup it shows them operating as "Mode U5". What is this?
Any help appreciated.
My Drive COnfiguration is as follows:
SATA Drives are on SATA3 & SATA4 (Promise 378 Controller)
(as RAID 0 for performance)
Primary IDE Master - Sony DVD/RW
Primary IDE Slave - not used
Secondary IDE Master - ASUS DVD ROM
Secondary IDE Slave - ATA 133 Drive bay (Empty)
3rd IDE Master&Slave - not used
On Board Promise settings
FastTrak 378 BIOS Ver 1.00.0.27
2+0 Stripe - Functional
HIT CTRL+F for setup and
(in the setup it shows RAID 0 Drive Array as Mode U5)
Bios Settings
Boot Device Priority
1 - Floppy
2 - ASUS DVD ROM
3 - BBS-0(RAID):FT 378 Ary 1
On Board Promise IDE - As RAID
On Chip ATA's Operation Mode - Legacy Mode
ATA Configuration - PATA only
SATA Keep enabled - no
* PATA Keep enabled - no
PATA channel selection - both
* Combined Mode Option - PATA First Channel
* SATA Ports Definition - P0-3rd/P1-4th
* Configure SATA as Raid - no
(where * is greyed out)
Bios sees both DVD ROM & Sony DVD/RW
Boot to CDROM
Start Windows 2000 install
F6
"S"
load Promise FastTrak 378 Controller
Windows 2000 setup continues...

Everything looks good to me. Like Danny said though, you will need to change Bios to "Native Mode" for the Intel controller if you ever intend to use the Serial connectors. If not you're fine.
Also it's not clear from your post if you understand that you are using the 2 SATA drives as a Raid array. This gives you better drive performance but increases the chance of losing data. MAKE REGULAR BACKUPS.
The Promise SATA drivers are for using the Serial1&2, IDE3 connectors with single/separate drives where Raid arrays are not used.

Hard drive configuration with Promise Raid controller

I plan on running two 30 gig 75GXP drives on the Promise controller in Raid-0 mode. I also have a 60 gig WD drive that I use for backups and for initial installation. During installation, I put the Win98SE setup files and all the drivers, apps, backup data, etc. on the WD drive and do a clean install from there.
My current (old) board is an Abit KT7-R with the Highpoint raid controller. Using the Highpoint controller, I am able to put the WD drive as a slave device and the controller treats it as a normal IDE drive. I'm moving to the 845 Ultra ARU. From what I've read, if you put a single drive on the Promise controller, it tries to set it up as a Raid drive? I don't want to risk losing my backup data on the WD drive to some attempt by the Promise controller to "raid" my single drive. So, where is the best place to put my WD drive so that I can install my system from it? I'm thinking about putting it as Master on IDE2. I normally run my CD as Master on IDE1. Once the installation is complete, I will remove the installation files from the WD drive and use it exclusively for backups. I have the WD drive in a Vantec EZ-Swap rack, and I normally keep it powered off unless doing a backup.
So, the plan is to create the Raid-0 array, Fdisk and format the array, and then load Windows from the WD drive, followed by all my applications. Is Master on IDE-2 the best solution for the WD drive?

hi
not very clued up on raid but it sounds right
if the wd drive is on its own on that ide do not jumper
as master you have to have no jumpers if all alone

Intel ICH5R or Promise 378 as S-ATA HDD controller?

Which one is better and faster choice? My pc configuration is shown in my signature.
Which of the controllers will give me better performance?
Thanks in advance...

hey guys, I have a theory.
Since Promise 378 s running on PCI bus, while ICH5R SATA has its 100MHz clock locked and independent of overclocking, I am interested to know whether overclocking the PCI bus and hence increase the performance of Promise 378 SATA RAID devices would show any improvement over the ICH5R? ATA100 or ATA133 doesn't make much difference as our HDD nowadays are still running quite slow.

Q45MDO does not initialise Promise RAID controller boot ROM

Hi all,
I have an MSI Q45MDO with a Promise EX8350 SATA RAID controller plugged into the PCI-E x16 slot, as I am using the board's onboard graphics for display purposes. However, when the system is booted, the Promise BIOS (which would allow me to configure the attached hard drives) is not displayed.
Does anyone know why this is and how I can get the Promise BIOS to be shown on bootup again?

Your Promise Card is explicitly listed in the Support list for your mainboard:
http://eu.msi.com/uploads/test_report/TR2_1750.pdf
You might wanna contact MSI Technical Support about this. Maybe they can point you into the right direction:
http://support.msi.com/
Also, get in touch with promise to find out if there is a new BIOS available for your Controller Card.

Promise RAID controller & WinXP - 845 ultra

I finally got around to connected a couple of drives to the Promise Fasttrack 133 RAID controller.
When I go into windows.. It finds the controller..
So if I look in Device Manager, I do see the Promise MBFasttrak 133 Lite..
But under DISK DRIVES, the Promise 2+0 stripe /raid0 scsi device shows up as an unknown, and if I try to update the drivers.. nothing ever changes..
The drive(s) does work, more of a comsmetic issue?
Thank you,
Fred R

Some of the suggestions I don't understand quite well. Please could you explain further:
> remove the other two drives leaving the raid pair
> and cd only
>
> put raid 2nd in boot order
What do you mean with that?
> reboot press the key you need to get in to raid bios
> create the array and make it bootable
array is already created (Note: there is important data on it, can't recreate it! Only Segate 80GB is free and empty)
I don't want to boot from raid.
>
> now boot to cd to install,right at beginning it will say
> press f6 to install mass storage drive you need the
> driver on floppy to install it
I already tried the XP-Install routine to specify additional mass storage drivers. (Note: 1 single 80GB Drive was attached) Which are the suitable ones? As mentioned I tried the following:
1. Attached floppy 'Fasttrack family drivers'
Result: Message: Driver is for Win2k only. Not a single Harddrive shows for installing XP.
2. Attached Floppy (Promise Ultra 100 lite, 256 only)
Result: Driver is for Win2k only. Installation procedure hangs.
3. Driver from MSI-Site for pdc20265. Same as 2.
4. Extracting via4in1 drivers and putting WinXPIDE drivers on floppy:
Result: Installation routine doesn't recoginze drivers on floppy.
> rest should be the same as normal
>
> this should be similar as well
>
> http://www.amdforums.com/showindex.php?s=&threadid=146384
Which is the right driver for WinXP to specify for mass storage device at WinXP installation?

Novell driver for promise raid controller PDC20276

[size=13]Is there a Novell driver for the promise raid controller on the KT3 Ultra2-R (MS-6380E) mainboard[/SIZE] this board uses the promise PDC20276 chipset.
The supplied disk only supports windows ;(
Can any one advise options thanks :P

CapricornC,
Since you have a KT3 Motherboard and you posted in the nVidia/AMD/SiS Motherboard Forum, I moved the thread to Via Forum for you.
Good Luck,
Richard

Onboard promise raid-controller and promise add-on sata-controller

Can anybody help me with the following problem.
I have 4 SATA hard disks.
2 Western Digital Raptors and 2 Seagate Barracuda V of 80 gig.
I would like to do the following:
I would like to put the 2 raptors in raid-striping for my OS on my onboard raid-controller and use the 2 barracuda's for data and connect them the promise add-on card (promise ultra150 tx2).
I have the following with this config: the raid-controller is no problem but when i connect a hard-drive to the add-on card, windows won't boot anymore and i have no possibility in the bios to choose to boot from the raid-controller.
I'm using an MSI K7N2G-ILSR motherboard with the latest MSI-bios.

I'm having the same problem but I can't switch my drives. I have my 2 200 gig maxtors full of data that i can't let go of. I've installed a new silicon images pci card with 2 sata channels. if i hook up the drives both bios recognize the drives correctly but it tell me invalid system disk. pretty sure that it's reading the pci card, not seeing a os installed and not even looking at my onboard controller. I was told that i can change irq priority, but i can't get it right or it doesn't work. I can install os on pci card but would really rather not. I'm very happy with the setup i have for once.
msi k7n2 delta promise 376 onboard controller

Howto use onboard Promise Raid Controller pdc20265 on 694D PRO AR Ver1

Currently I'm running Win2k on my MSI 694D Pro AR Ver 1.0 board with Bios version W6321VMS.310 and the included Fasttrack-Family Win2k Raid-Controller driver for my Promise Raid Controller pdc20265 with lite bios.
Due to software updates I'm now absolutely required to switch to Windows XP Prof. However this is the cause for my inquiry:
I downloaded and installed the latest available Bios version W6321VMS.370 from MSI site.
On installation of XP I tried to include the pdc20265 Fasttrack raid driver from MSI site to get access to my HD's. However WinXP couldn't find any HD's. Remark: XP with SP1 and VIA 4in1443v.exe installed.
So I repeated this procedure with the original drivers Fasttrack family and pdc202065 which were attached on floppy. Unfortunately no success as well.
Then I have put the HD on the Ultra66 channel and installed XP first without raid and ultra 100 support.
Later I re-enabled the on-board promise device in bios and unfortunately WinXP didn't recoginze the device by itself. So I provided the latest pdc20265 driver from MSI site. XP complained that the driver is not digitally signed. After reboot the promise device reported an error under WinXP.
I repeated this procedure with the original drivers Fasttrack family and pdc202065 which were attached on floppy. Unfortunately no success as well.
Why MSI-Site says this pdc20265 driver supports WinXP if there are only the Win2k and WinME,98... drivers included?
Currently I can't use the promise device at all under WinXP. This means even I don't have an Ultra 100 controler available.
Has anyone an idea how to install HD's on WinXP with the corresponding promise raid drivers for my pdc20265 onboard chipset?
I'd really appreciate your help!

Some of the suggestions I don't understand quite well. Please could you explain further:
> remove the other two drives leaving the raid pair
> and cd only
>
> put raid 2nd in boot order
What do you mean with that?
> reboot press the key you need to get in to raid bios
> create the array and make it bootable
array is already created (Note: there is important data on it, can't recreate it! Only Segate 80GB is free and empty)
I don't want to boot from raid.
>
> now boot to cd to install,right at beginning it will say
> press f6 to install mass storage drive you need the
> driver on floppy to install it
I already tried the XP-Install routine to specify additional mass storage drivers. (Note: 1 single 80GB Drive was attached) Which are the suitable ones? As mentioned I tried the following:
1. Attached floppy 'Fasttrack family drivers'
Result: Message: Driver is for Win2k only. Not a single Harddrive shows for installing XP.
2. Attached Floppy (Promise Ultra 100 lite, 256 only)
Result: Driver is for Win2k only. Installation procedure hangs.
3. Driver from MSI-Site for pdc20265. Same as 2.
4. Extracting via4in1 drivers and putting WinXPIDE drivers on floppy:
Result: Installation routine doesn't recoginze drivers on floppy.
> rest should be the same as normal
>
> this should be similar as well
>
> http://www.amdforums.com/showindex.php?s=&threadid=146384
Which is the right driver for WinXP to specify for mass storage device at WinXP installation?

K8N Neo2 + NVRAID + Promise Raid Controller = not working right

I'm trying to get my Promise Raid card working with nvraid enabled and I've finally given up. It works fine with NVRAID disabled though. I have 2xSata on Raid 0 and 2xIDE on raid 0+1. i also have two other IDE's on non-raid and two atapi cdrom drives. In order for me to use all of my storage devices, i need the promise controller to boot. The Prommise RAID controller's BIOS will not boot with nvraid enabled. WindowsXP detects the drives, but if i try to mount them via PAM (Promise Arry Management), it says one of the drives is corrupt/not working. but if i have both the ide raid hd's on the nvraid w/ sata raid, then it works fine. I just won't be able to use my cdrom drives. if anyone has a fix for this, please let me know. and sorry for the long descriptions. thanks.

Why don't you go into BIOS and alter the IRQ manually for that PCI card, because probably that card is using the same IRQ as the nVidia one.
Be well....

Promise 378

Hi there, I have installed Vista home Premium on my Neo 875 mobo. It holds a intel RAID and a promise 378 controller. Everything works, but the promise controller. I have tryed several drivers included the latest I could find. the 1.0.0.39/41 driver. Vista accepts the driver, but is not finalising the installation and freezes. No error codes.
Does anybody have a driver or a workaround, that lets me install so that I can connect my SATA drive on the controller? I am not going to use it in raid, but only as sata controller.
Regards
Neo

Quote from: Neiwintro on 15-February-07, 15:23:08
Hello - I have checked the promise website, but no findings there. as I wrote, i do not use the controller as RAID. I have enabled it in bios as SATA and Vista finds the controller. When I load the driver Vista accepts it, but dont finalize the installation. I have tryed the newest driver from MSI with no luck and a driver 39/41 that others seam to have gotten to work.
I haven´t tryed the one MJ is using. But i will to night - thx.
I have a single 320 GB SATA1 disk on the controller. I worked fine when i had XP installed.
My system is as following:
2 80 GB SATA 1 disks in raid 1 on the intel controller.
a pioneer DVD burner on the first pata controller
1 80 GB PATA om the second pata controller
a 320 sata 1 on the promisecontroller
P4 3 Ghz cpu
1 Gb RAM
And I hope that I can use it until this summer. when I plan to build a new PC
Thx
Neo
I have successfully installed Vista Ultimate on 2xSATA raid 1 on intel controller for testing purpose. The Promise controller without RAID works perfectly with the driver version 1.0.0.26 (which I have used earlier) without any problem. If you need the driver, please drop me an email via emailremovedbymoderator. The driver version 1.0.0.39 has a problem in starting up.
Regards,
MJ
I removed your email address from the post to protect you from spam and such. PM the guy your address to give him the contact.
Frankenputer

Promise SATA ultra controller

I have an 875 board and can't get the Promise driver to work. During the start up I'm told that the Promise bios is not installed (?!?). When the controller is recognised in Windows XP Professional it prompts me to load drivers. I use the latest set but the system takes an age to load the ptipbm.dll and then becomes very unstable before freezing. I have to restart to the last known good configuration.
Help please.

Hey,
Are you using the S-ATA connector(s) or the Ultra ATA IDE connector (IDE3)??
What bios version are you using? I used the drivers that came on the CD. Actually, I used MSI's Autoplay on the disc to install it.
Usually that message indicates that the promise card did not identify any hard drives connected. Check connections, then check the bios setup.
Also what configuration are you trying to achieve with the Promise 378? I set up two drives on a single channel RAID-0. Both drives as CABLE SELECT. Then set the Promise IDE to AS RAID. Then when it when it sees the drives you can use CTRL-F like Barking Dog wisely suggested )
I was able to actually transplant my RAID from my Fasttrak TX2000 straight onto my onboard 378. I lost about 2MB sec (66 down to 64), but it was worth it to actually get use of a feature I paid for on the board.

Promise 378 RAID controller wierdness

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