P4G8X - SATA and Promise RAID issue

I have just added a pair of WD 250gb SATA drives set up as a 500gb RAID 0
Array. They work fine on their own but as soon as I try to install my
Promise TX2000 RAID card the PC doesn;t get further than the Windows XP
flag.

My systemis configured as follows:

P4 3.06 HT enabled
2gb RAM in 4x512mb chips
AGP - Geforce 5950 Ultra 2mb 8x AGP
PCI1 - Empty
PCI2 - Matrox RTX.100
PCI3 - Empty
PCI4 - SB AUdigy 2 Platinum Ex
PCI5 - Promise TX2000 with 4x Matrox 160gb JBOD

I tried reinstalling WIndows XP, I also reseated the PRomise into PCI3 and
still the same result. The only time the promise will boot completely is if
there are no drives connected.

My PSU is 550w so I doubt if the power is the problem? ANy ideas?

Regards

Mark

In article <PG3yc.44244$B63.28339@doctor.cableinet.net>, "Mark"
<m@rk-5c0tt@8lu3y0nd3r.c0.uk> wrote:

 > I have just added a pair of WD 250gb SATA drives set up as a 500gb RAID 0
 > Array. They work fine on their own but as soon as I try to install my
 > Promise TX2000 RAID card the PC doesn;t get further than the Windows XP
 > flag.
 >
 > My systemis configured as follows:
 >
 > P4 3.06 HT enabled
 > 2gb RAM in 4x512mb chips
 > AGP - Geforce 5950 Ultra 2mb 8x AGP
 > PCI1 - Empty
 > PCI2 - Matrox RTX.100
 > PCI3 - Empty
 > PCI4 - SB AUdigy 2 Platinum Ex
 > PCI5 - Promise TX2000 with 4x Matrox 160gb JBOD
 >
 > I tried reinstalling WIndows XP, I also reseated the PRomise into PCI3 and
 > still the same result. The only time the promise will boot completely is if
 > there are no drives connected.
 >
 > My PSU is 550w so I doubt if the power is the problem? ANy ideas?
 >
 > Regards
 >
 > Mark

You could try investigating the use of multiple controllers
over here:

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://forums.2cpu.com/search.php" target="_blank">http://forums.2cpu.com/search.php</a>

I've read a thread some time in the past, which mentioned that the
drivers for controller cards, allocate memory from low memory (640K)
for buffers or something. If one card uses too much space, then the
BIOS for the other card won't be able to load.

Looking in the forums now, I also saw mention of only setting up
one controller for booting. In other words, the second controller
is set up so it cannot boot, but when the OS loads drivers from the
first controller, then the second controller can be used to control
a data array. Now, maybe all this needs, is to disable the RAID BIOS
on one of the cards.

This doesn't sound extremely flexible, but it might get around the
issues with multiple cards trying to load their BIOS at boot time.
Apparently, in some cases, like Adaptec controllers, the BIOS from
one controller can load and control a second Adaptec controller.

It all sounds quite complicated and messy. The perils of integrating
your own hardware.

Paul<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->