# P4C800-E, Promise 378 IDE Driver Headache



## ksteiger (Oct 3, 2004)

This is absolutely frustrating.

I'm currently running two 120GB SATA drives in RAID 1 on the Intel ICH5R controller. The array is working perfectly. I also have a CD-RW and a DVD, each connected independently to the Primary and Secondary IDE controllers. Of course, they work perfectly, as well.

I have a spare drive which I want to install on the Promise contoller to store videos. This should be a breeze to accomplish. In BIOS I set the Promise controller to enabled, and changed the function from RAID to IDE. I booted to XP SP2 and Windows "found new hardware" and installed the driver. However, there was a yellow exclamation mark next to it in Device Manager. I tried updating the driver to the Promise XP IDE driver on the ASUS motherboard CD, with the same result (I looked but didn't find an updated IDE driver for the 378 controller on the Promise web site). I also tried uninstalling the Promise controller in Device Manager and then manually installing the driver from the CD. Same result. Also, at no time did the drive appear in Disk Management.

Out of curiosity, I changed the Promise controller function to RAID, and XP had no problem. The driver installed and functioned perfectly, but of course I did not create an array since I had only one drive.

In the name of everything that is holy, why is this such a pain in the backside? I am no newcomer to PC's -- I'm a Novell network administrator and have been building machines with RAID arrays for years. No one should have to go through these shenanigans to make a board work as advertised.

I've read some of the threads in this forum and apparently I'm not the only one having this problem. It's a shame that ASUS can't produce a reliable motherboard. I understand the complexities of a top-end, loaded mobo -- but it should be thoroughly tested prior to being marketed -- and I think it would be in everyone's best interests to complain to the manufacturer when defects are found.

My system consists of:
P4C800-E Deluxe, BIOS version 1016
P4 3.2c 800MHz FSB
2x512MB Corsair Value Select
2x120GB Hitachi SATA in RAID 1 on Intel ICH5R
CD-RW on Primary IDE
DVD on Secondary IDE
ATI AIW 9800 Pro 128MB

If anyone can point me in the right direction for a resolution to this issue, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you,
Kevin


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## twajetmech (Jul 1, 2004)

There are two versions of the fasttrack 378 driver on the asus mobo cd, make sure you are using the correct one (for IDE, they both have very similar names)....however, I was under the impression that you do not need a driver when installing an sata non raid drive on the promise controller if you are using XP, just the change to the bios settings like you did. Hopefully I will get a chance and try this out this weekend, I'll post my findings if I do.
twajetmech


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

The problem is that you let (or didn't get the chance to prevent) XP install the drivers automatically. Windows installed the wrong driver! 

It's been my experience that XP already has Promise FastTrak RAID drivers built in, but doesn't have the SATA378 driver. Windows' NewHardware wizard bases its decision on the chip identity, so either this isn't switching when you switch the BIOS mode, or the driver XP took in, thinks both the IDE and RAID chip ID are the same. By default it installs the FastTrak RAID driver, and that's why RAID mode had no problem.

Either way, all you need to do is download the Promise ATA Driver. Unzip it to a folder on your OS drive and optionally run its MakeDisk.exe to make a floppy disk from it. 

The switch the BIOS Promise Operate Mode back to IDE. If the WIzard pops up, try to cancel it or find the "Have Disk" option. Otherwise boot and go into Device Manager and right-click the device and choose Update Driver. 

Whatever you don, be sure to choose "I will specify the location" or however that choice is worded: don't let Windows choose the driver. You have to poke around and find the "Have Disk" option, and feed it the driver you downloaded. Be absolutely sure you choose the device called "WinXP Promise SATA378 (tm) IDE Controller". Then you should be fine. Use DiskManagement to partition the drive, then it will show up in MyComputer.

Hope this helps,

-clintfan


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## ksteiger (Oct 3, 2004)

Thank you both for your input and quick response. I have downloaded and will now attempt to install the IDE driver Clintfan suggested and will post back.

Again, thank you both.

Kevin


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## ksteiger (Oct 3, 2004)

I just realized that I failed to mention in my post that the drive I want to use on the Promise controller is a parallel ATA drive. Maybe I have made an incorrect assumption.

Since the Promise controller can provide RAID functions for both the two individual SATA ports and the one PATA port, I assumed that it could provide a single IDE drive function to either the SATA or PATA port. Am I incorrect? Must the drive in IDE mode be a SATA drive? And the PATA port is used solely for RAID?

Even if that is true, it doesn't explain why whenever I try to update the Promise IDE driver, it fails -- unless it needs to find a SATA drive attached to the controller.

Any thoughts?

Thanks again,
Kevin


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

> I was under the impression that you do not need a driver when installing an sata non raid drive on the promise controller


No, that's not correct. Because the Promise is an addon PCI device, you do need the SATA378 driver (aka. ATA driver).




> the drive I want to use on the Promise controller is a parallel ATA drive. Maybe I have made an incorrect assumption. Since the Promise controller can provide RAID functions for both the two individual SATA ports and the one PATA port, I assumed that it could provide a single IDE drive function to either the SATA or PATA port. Am I incorrect? Must the drive in IDE mode be a SATA drive? And the PATA port is used solely for RAID?


The entire chip runs in IDE mode or the entire chip runs in RAID mode. You cannot have a mix, though I don't think you were asking for one. The only limitation is that the PATA port cannot be used for ATAPI devices like CDROMs.




> it doesn't explain why whenever I try to update the Promise IDE driver, it fails -- unless it needs to find a SATA drive attached to the controller.


Well I guess both of my P4C800_E's _do_ have SATA drives attached (in IDE mode), however AFAIK you should not even need to have ANY physical drives attached, in order to install this driver.

Did you remember to switch the BIOS to IDE mode? What do you mean by "it fails"...?

-clintfan


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## ksteiger (Oct 3, 2004)

Clintfan, once again, thanks for the quick response.

Yes, the BIOS is absolutely correct. The Promise controller is enabled and the mode is set for IDE as opposed to RAID. When I boot, after the POST the Promise controller discovers the drive and reports it correctly.

Once in XP, Device Manager shows a yellow exclamation point. The error is -- and I'm paraphrasing -- The Device could not start. Error (10). When I try to update the driver, I of course do it manually and point to the directory containing the ATA drivers. For example, using the ASUS motherboard CD, the path would be, in my case:

J:\Drivers\Promise\378ATA\WINXP, as opposed to J:\Drivers\Promise\378RAID\WINXP.

You're obviously the guru and I understand you have no way of knowing someone's level of expertise or lack thereof, so I'm being very explicit.

FYI, the drivers that you were kind enough to provide a link to are the same drivers that I had installed initially.

During my last effort, I disabled the Promise controller, booted to XP, used the Add New Hardware Wizard and selected SCSI and RAID controller, then clicked the Have Disk button and navigated to the driver. I was hoping that might have been a workaround for "tricking" XP into installing the proper drivers. I rebooted, enabled the Promise controller in BIOS, Windows started, and Device Manager reported the same error message.

Frustrating, to say the least. I won't waste any more of your time. I certainly appreciate that you've spent the time to go this far. In the end, I'll probably just buy a second drive put up a RAID 1 array. It looks like that will work without a problem.

Thank you for your help.

Kevin


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## ksteiger (Oct 3, 2004)

Clintfan, I finally resolved the Promise IDE driver issue. I thought you might like to know how I did it. It was quite bizarre.

I enabled the Promise controller in IDE mode, booted to Windows, checked Device Manager and found the same error. I did not uninstall the device or update the driver. Instead, I started the Add New Hardware wizard from Control Panel. It found no new hardware so I was presented with a list to choose from. The Promise controller, along with all the other devices in my Device Manager, were listed. I chose it and installed the Promise IDE driver and, lo and behold, Device Manager now displayed it as working properly. But there was a new twist.

There was an additional unknown device listed. I again started the Add New Hardware wizard and it found a "Promise SATA Console SCSI Processor Device," but could not locate a driver for it. I shut down and plugged the drive in, booted to Windows and it worked perfectly, and the Promise SATA Console SCSI Processor Device disappeared from Device Manager.

Thank you for all your time and your help, it is appreciated.

Kevin


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

Thanks for closing the loop on this. Glad you got it going. It was starting to sound like bad hardware, but since it seemed to work OK in RAID mode with the same interfaces, I was confident you would find some way to coax Windows into accepting it.

I found Microsoft 310123 which discusses the "Code" meanings, but it was not much to go on. Just made it sound like a hardware problem. I've seen "Device cannot start" of some such error before, and I think it's different than what they describe here.

About the "SATA Console" device, I do not think you need to worry about that device. I think it's a phantom device, not something we can really provide drivers for. However it does soound like in this case, something about that phantom device was making Windows unhappy. 
:beerchug: 
But life is good now. And you can enjoy the data-flow benefits of having some disk storage away from the main chipset. For instance you may find that if you burn any CD's you might get a slight burn-speed improvement if you configure your burn-software's temp storage area down on that Promise drive... and configure the software to use DAO (Disk at Once) mode, sometimes called "make a copy first". 

-clintfan


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## ksteiger (Oct 3, 2004)

Thanks very much, Clintfan, and thanks for the burning tip. I'm sure you know that you're very much appreciated by everyone on this forum.

Kevin


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## Chad (Nov 8, 2004)

On xpsp2, There is another way to fix the error code 10. Go to %windir%\system32\drivers delete the raid driver fasttx2k.sys. Go to %windir%\system32
delete ptibpmf.dll. This is a read only file, you might need to change the attribute before you can delete it.

After that, in devmgmt.msc, scan hardware change, it will find the raid device for fasttrack 378, but can not find a driver for it. Now you can install a drive manually and direct xp to install 378 IDE driver. After that everything works.



ksteiger said:


> Clintfan, I finally resolved the Promise IDE driver issue. I thought you might like to know how I did it. It was quite bizarre.
> 
> I enabled the Promise controller in IDE mode, booted to Windows, checked Device Manager and found the same error. I did not uninstall the device or update the driver. Instead, I started the Add New Hardware wizard from Control Panel. It found no new hardware so I was presented with a list to choose from. The Promise controller, along with all the other devices in my Device Manager, were listed. I chose it and installed the Promise IDE driver and, lo and behold, Device Manager now displayed it as working properly.
> 
> Kevin


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## ksteiger (Oct 3, 2004)

Thanks, Chad, that's certainly a great tip. Had I known this before, life would certainly have been much easier. I had a dilly of a time with this driver. Thanks again.

Kevin


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

_mjsee, I have split your new questions out into a new thread, Trouble Installing Promise 378 IDE Driver. I don't have time to respond to it right this second though. Next time it is better to begin your own new thread._


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## Aquarius707 (Dec 1, 2004)

*Aquarius*

Thanks so much Clint! :smile:

I also had two SATA drives in a RAID-0 array on the Intel controller and one IDE drive on the Promise controller, the latter which was not recognized by Windows XP. I took your advice and went into the device manager to "other devices" -> "RAID controller," and installed the Promise ATA driver. Voila! Windows XP recognized the additional drive and its partitions immediately, without needing to reboot.

Cheers,
Alex
http://www.projectaquarius.info


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## catseye (Dec 23, 2004)

*Still Going In Circles*



ksteiger said:


> I shut down and plugged the drive in, booted to Windows and it worked perfectly, and the Promise SATA Console SCSI Processor Device disappeared from Device Manager.


Are you saying you installed the controller without the HD connected?
I'm in about the same hole but still going in circles. <G>
Thanks!


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## ksteiger (Oct 3, 2004)

Yes, you can install the driver without a drive connected. It isn't required that a drive be connected to the controller -- the driver can still be installed since the controller, as long as it is enabled in BIOS, is hardware that is visible to Windows.


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