Announcement

**Dr Mordrid** · 23 October 2000, 17:39

I'm assuming both drives had any partitioning info wiped before trying to form them into an array....

What BIOS version is on the FT/33's ROM? If it's below 1.08 then you should call/write Promise and get the update, which I believe is free. This fixed a lot of problems with older BIOS versions.

Info here;

http://support.promise.com/trouble/f..._bios_info.htm

Dr. Mordrid

**Patrick** · 23 October 2000, 23:17

Ummm.... Was I supposed to wipe the two drives before I set them up with the FastTrack??!!! I just assumed that I could use fdisk and format the drives afterwards. There was only a minimal amount of stuff on them, but I'll certainly clean them off now if that's the problem. Each drive only had one partition on it if that's of any relevance.

Doc, thanks for the info. I'm embarrassed to admit that it was back in June that I originally asked a few questions about my "upcoming" FastTrack installation and way back then you advised me to update the bios. I didn't realize until yesterday that I couldn't simply flash the bios on the card. As you already know, Promise has to mail out a new bios chip. I have bios version 1.06 on the card. I've emailed Promise and requested the 1.08 bios, but I'm now wondering whether or not I'm be in limbo until I receive the new chip.

**Dr Mordrid** · 24 October 2000, 00:46

The 1.06 BIOS isn't too bad as long as you don't feed it any Seagate drives. That was the major bugfix in 1.06, and it was really a Seagate issue anyhow. The other fixes involve using large arrays.

YES, removing ALL partitioning info on the drives is essential to forming a stable array, regardless of the specific model of the Fasttrak. Otherwise it confuses the Fasttraks BIOS. Sometimes this requires attaching them to an IDE port singly and using FDISK.

For future reference: FDISK misreports the size of arrays >64 gigs. This is a cosmetic problem only as Windows will report and use the full array.

Dr. Mordrid

**Patrick** · 24 October 2000, 12:03

Doc, thanks again. I'll try wiping the drives off later today and I'll report back. I hope this works!!!

**Patrick** · 24 October 2000, 19:08

Well, that about sums up my success...

I connected both hard drives to the motherboard's IDE connector and used FDISK to delete all partition information. I re-connected the hard drives to the FastTrack, used FDISK to set up the partition information, then re-formatted the drives. I continued the process and proceeded to load the drivers. So far, so good. However, when I re-boot as instructed by Windows to finish loading the drivers, I get the message, No Array is Defined. And when I check the setup I get the message, No Disk is Found. I don't understand why the array is fine in the setup when I check it BEFORE the drivers are loaded!

When I continue to boot up Windows, the two drives on the array sometimes show up as one drive, but they do NOT work properly, as probably can be expected with what I've described. I said "sometimes" because I just noticed that they no longer appear at all under My Computer.

I don't know which end is up any more...

Doc, anyone.... suggestions?

**Pertti** · 25 October 2000, 00:50

Patrick,

Have you tried the FT in an other PCI slot ?

**Patrick** · 25 October 2000, 02:03

Pertti, yes I've tried it in slot 1(IRQ 11) and slot 4(IRQ 10).

When I could think of nothing else to do to get this system working properly, I decided to try the WD Data Lifeguard Tools. Things went from bad to worse. I initially got a message that there was something wrong with the setup of the bios of the (FastTrack) controller card and that I would have to access the drives another way. However, I was still given the option in EZ-Install to format the two Expert drives separately, whereas when I earlier used the Windows formatting program, I was able to format the two drives as ONE drive. (The two drives were connected to the FastTrack both times.) Then after running a diagnostic check, there was an error warning and I noticed that the EZ-Install program was no longer recognizing the two WD drives as it had originally, but was now identifying one of the two WDC AC418000D drives as an UDA AC418000D drive with about half the capacity! What the heck is a UDA? And now EZ-Install refuses to deal with the situation. What is going on? I didn't even get a chance to screw anything up myself before one of the WD programs appears to have changed something.

Does any of this make any sense?

**Pertti** · 25 October 2000, 07:21

Patrick,

Hmm... 2x18GB=36GB.. I hear a faint bell ringing... or then I'm just hearing things...

If you connect only one of the WD:s into the FT, does it make any difference ?

**Dr Mordrid** · 25 October 2000, 13:55

I think I hear a similar bell....maybe two of 'em....

1. Have you disabled ATA66 using WD's WDATA66 utility? WD AC418000's often don't play well on an ATA33 controller. WDATA66 puts it into an ATA33 compatability mode. Get it here;

http://www.westerndigital.com/fitness/66warning.html

2. How old are these WD's? I ask because there have been no less than 3 recalls of WD drives in the last couple of years.

Dr. Mordrid

[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 25 October 2000).]

**Patrick** · 25 October 2000, 16:53

I don't know about any bells ringing, but you might be able to hear me banging my head against the wall.

Pertti, I now have one drive on the FastTrack and it's made no difference.

Doc, yes the drives had their ATA/66 disabled by using the WD utility. I've been using them fine up to this point (without the FastTrack) running at ATA/33. One drive is about a year old and the other about six months. A quick look at the WD site seems to show that it's the Caviar drives that they're having problems with, but I couldn't say for sure that my Expert drives have never been recalled.

I used both the EZ-Bios and EZ-Install utilities on the one Expert drive I now have connected to the FastTrack. It took an hour and a half to write zeros on the whole drive but it didn't make any difference.

Is there ANY chance that there is information on the Expert drive from the utility that's "dumbed down" the drive from ATA/66 to ATA/33 that could be messing up the FastTrack. I'm grasping at straws here...

I haven't even tried to deal with the situation yet in regards to the other Expert drive now being detected as a 7Gb drive.

Sorry for all the faces, but I have spent SO much time on this the last couple of days.

Although we haven't got to the bottom of this yet, I certainly appreciate your input guys!

[This message has been edited by Patrick (edited 26 October 2000).]

**Dr Mordrid** · 25 October 2000, 19:09

Perhaps a review of how the Fasttraks work might ring a neuron or two....

The array info is not written to a ROM or the boot disk. This info is stored on the array drives themselves. You could remove and reinstall them on another system with a Fasttrak and the array should come up intact.

Because of this if there is a problem with one of the drives all hell can break loose when trying to form and maintain the array as the definition info can get lost or corrupted. This is where I think you should be concentrating your efforts.

I'd hook each drive up to an IDE header, perhaps even the Fastraks with it set up as a spanned array with just one disk, and see what happens when you write some large files to it.

Perhaps a full surface scan with Scandisk is in order as well.

Also make sure you have them connected properly (this stated just for completeness sake):

A two drive array should have each drive on its own cable. Each drive should be connected to the end of its respective cable. Both should be set to MASTER.

Dr. Mordrid

**Patrick** · 25 October 2000, 23:15

"Perhaps a review of how the FastTraks work might ring a neuron or two...."

Ok, let's do it.

"The array info is not written to a ROM or the boot disk. This info is stored on the array drives themselves. Because of this if there is a problem with one of the drives all hell can break loose when trying to form and maintain the array as the definition info can get lost or corrupted. This is where I think you should be concentrating your effort."

This was the reason why I was concerned that some bit of data already on the drives (the ATA/33/66 business) might be confusing the FastTrack. I also have to be entirely honest and admit that I'm now totally confused with the whole FDISK and formatting procedure when it comes to the "proper" way of doing it when the FastTrack is involved. Should I have used the WD Tools to set up the drives before or after they were connected to the FastTrack? I used FDISK before I connected them and the WD Tools (EZ-Install, etc) after they were connected.

"I'd hook each drive up to an IDE header, perhaps even the FastTraks with it set up as a spanned array with just one disk, and see what happens when you write some large files to it."

I now can't write any files to even a single drive connected to the FastTrack. The system does not recognize any drive that's connected to the FastTrack, although at one point (probably when no drivers were installed) I was able to write to the two drives (seen as one drive) but the "performance" was horrible.

"Perhaps a full surface scan with ScanDisk is in order as well."

There were utilities on the WD Tools disk that supposedly checked the drive after I had written zeros on the entire disk. It was given a clean bill of health. Would ScanDisk do a different or better job of checking the drive? Keep in mind that I've never had any problems with either Expert drive prior to this FastTrack fiasco.

"A two drive array should have each drive on its own cable. Each drive should be connected to the end of its respective cable. Both should be set to MASTER."

Both drives were set as Master on their own cables and connectors. However, because the cables were a little longer than necessary the "middle" plug on each cable was connected to the FastTrack. Does it make a difference with IDE cables which plugs are used on the cables?

Doc, I appreciate it very much that you're giving me these tips. Please don't think where I've asked you a question that I'm questioning your advice. Not at all. I'm just trying to understand this mess more and I'm hoping that my questions might also bring more knowledge to light. Heavens knows, I need all the knowledge I can acquire at this point!

This damn WD EZ-Bios utility seems to have written something on my Seagate boot drive. Man oh man this is frustrating. The last thing I need is for my boot drive to start acting up. It seems that this EZ-Bios utility, when installed on a drive, takes the control of the setup of the drive away from the computer's bios and instead it's done with info from the drive itself (put there by the EZ-Bios utility). As far as I know, I did NOT instruct this utility to affect the boot drive, but...

It seems that I have two issues now, the FastTrack installation and now these WD Data Lifeguard Tools. Sorry if my explanations don't entirely make sense. I've been going around in circles for the last three days and staying up way too late. I can't deal with this anymore tonight, I need some sleep.

Again, thanks everyone for any and all suggestions.

[This message has been edited by Patrick (edited 26 October 2000).]

**Frankie G** · 26 October 2000, 05:43

That "EZ-BIOS" rings an alarm bell here... If your computer's
BIOS supports disk drives as large as yours, you don't need it. It is
only for older systems that e.g. only recognize 8.4G drives.
Try individually running FDISK /MBR on each of the WD drives,
(this will wipe any EZ-BIOS or other nonstandard boot
block utility) and hook them up again to the Fasttrak without
any EZBIOS or whatever. I'm watching this thread 'cuz I'm
thinking of getting an extra drive and Fasttrak and
join the Huff-YUY2 club.
Like chicken soup, "it wouldn't hurt".

**Eric VanHeest** · 26 October 2000, 06:20

I had a problem remarkably similar to this, and I spent all day trying different RAID configurations, and it turned out that not one, but BOTH IDE cables were bad. Switched them out for different cables and voila, instant success. Stupid cables.

Announcement

Cannot get FastTrack/33 to install properly.

Cannot get FastTrack/33 to install properly.

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