Guys, I need your help installing a new hdd

[Nuno]

I needed an extra storing space and I bought a Seagate ST330621A (30 Gb, ATA 100, 5400 rpm) to replace my aging Fujitsu 6.4 Gb. I already have a Maxtor 13.5 Gb 7200 rpm I use as my primary disk.

I installed it as master on the secondary ATA 100 promise IDE controller on my Asus A7V. I´m using a 80-pin IDE cable.

The promise bios finds it fine, sets it to UDMA 5 (ATA 100?). I boot from a cd-rom (win98 boot disk), I can fdisk it fine, create the partition(s).

But when I try to format it DOS reports "invalid media type" WinMe sees the drive but hangs when I try to format it. Win2k doesn´t even report it.

Any ideas?

[Admiral]

Unplug the other IDE devices, set the new HD as master on the first controller, try to format it in DOS.
Try formating it in someone else's system (a friend who has Win98 installed) as slave on the secondary controller from Win, or in DOS.
Partition it again... did you enable large HD support when FDISK asked ?



[This message has been edited by Admiral (edited 09 April 2001).]

[dZeus]

did you load the promise drivers for the controller correctly?

I've noticed that you can't even install win98se from the promise, because it needs the drivers to see the drive properly. Without those drivers, it would just hang while loading windows off it.

[Nuno]

Thanks for replying

I went on a trial and error basis - I tried your sugestions, to no avail, and I was using fdisk and format from pure DOS - And I sort of fixed it. I set the drive jumper to "cable select" and there you go, now I can format my partitions. Go wonder... Bad drive? Promise controller being icky?

But now that part is done, I still have some big problems:

- DOS can see all partitions, can read and write to them

- WinMe can see the partitions, and read/write, but it only boots on safe mode.

- Win2k just can´t see the partitions. Any ideas? I tried "search for new hardware" to no avail...

[Guru]

You did not leave the jumper at CS did you?!?

[Nuno]

erm, actually I did, but does it make any diference? Isn´t just cable select a way modern hdd´s autoselecting master/slaveacording to the IDE connector they´re on?

But I just changed the jumper back to master, and win2k still can´t see the drive...

[Sisyfos]

Can you list what devices exactly you have running off onboard and Promise respectively, and how they are configured Master/Slave/Cable Select?

When you say Win2K doesn't report the new HDD, I assume you meen in Device Manager and Drive Manager and not just Windows Explorer?

Is the Win98 bootdisk from FE or SE?
Are you trying to format the drive as one large partition?

Have you tried Fdisk from ME?

Is the disk completely new, ie no old dos or non-dos partitions?

Does the disk function normally when attached to VIA controller?

[Nuno]

Ok, here is my configuration:

I have 1 Maxtor 7200 ATA66, 1 seagate 5400 30 Gb, 1 cd-rom philips 40x and a cd-r/RW-DVD samsung combo.

All devices are set to master, each one on its IDE controler. The main disk (the maxtor) is on the primary ATA 100 (promise) the seagate is on the secondary ATA 100 (where my old 6.4 gb disk was working fine), the cd-r is on the main VIA IDE controller, the cd-rom on the secondary IDE.

The maxtor 13.5 Gb has 2 partitions (c: and e about 7 Gb each and the seagate 30 gb has two partitions too (d: 20 Gb and f: 10 Gb).

Yes, that´s correct, the drives d: and f: don´t show up neither on explorer, nor device manager nor disk manager.

The boot disk I got is from win98 FE

The disk is working, as far as I can tell, because all partitions (c: d: e: f appear both in DOS and in winMe. I can write and read to the disk, no problem.

I will try to attatch it to via controller...

Update: It´s the same attatched to the via controller. It´s there from dos (partition letters just changed) but win2k just can´t see it...

[This message has been edited by Nuno (edited 10 April 2001).]

[The PIT]

I've had the same problem in the past with win2k not seeing a drive. This was because the drive letters were incorrectly assigned if I remember correctly (win2k and win9x assign drive letters differently).Win2k saw the drive for example as drive D and it already had a drive d so it disabled it. I could see the drive under the disk manager and this said disabled.
Which partition is win2k sitting on??? If it's sitting on the second partition on the first drive it will be assigned a letter D. Now if you formatted under windows me this will assign the drive letter D to the new drive so w2k when it boots will see another D and say get stuffed I'm D. You won't then see the hardrive under my computer or program manager. Thats what happened in my case anyway and it maybe your problem.

[Nuno]

No, actually I can´t see the drive under diskmanager. I already changed drive letter for the cd-rom and the cd-r to free up letter f:, but no.

win2k is installed on maxtor 2nd partition, drive e: under winMe and win2k.

The point is I already had a d: drive, the old 6.4 gb that was also on the secondary promise IDE.

So I was expecting to see a 20 Gb d: drive (instead of 6.4) and a new f: drive with 10 gb, but that´s not what hapenning...

Lately upgrades have been damn complicated. I miss the old set jumper-connect IDE&Power-fdisk-format-and there you go, your OS recognises the drive...

[Nuno]

Ok, Thanks Admiral, dZeus, Guru, Sisyfos, The PIT, but I managed to get a workaround.

It was completely impossible to operate the two drives from the promise controler, and I tried all the possible combinations. If I had the 2 drives connected simultaneously, win2k won´t see the seagate and winMe hang on boot-up.

As far as winME, it must be the promise driver, because if I replace it with the windows "pci mass storage controller" winMe boots fine and all the drives are recognised. But of course, no DMA (I think)

About win2k, I just don´t have a clue. Promise bios/win2k driver problems?

What I have done was to disable promise controler and to do a classical hdd´s master-slave on via controller 1 and cd-r/cd-rom master-slave on via controler 2.

Previously I reported that the seagate drive wasn´t working on the via IDE controller, but that was *my* fault, because I got the slave disks set to "disabled" instead of "auto-detect" on device manager. After enabling it the seagate is recognised and both partitions are fine.

Both disks operate at ATA66, but I don´t think it makes a diference from ATA66->ATA100 with a 5400 rpm disk...

Ok, people rant about Abit hot-rod controllers, but let me say that this experience with a promise wasn´t the most pleasant...

Thanks again to all




[This message has been edited by Nuno (edited 11 April 2001).]