Ken Dibble wrote:
I've got a 250 GB IDE HDD formatted with one primary DOS partition

imho this should be formatted Logical if you are using it for Storage.

under FAT32 to 128 GB (more or less). This is not my C: drive, it's
actually the third physical hard drive in my system; it's an add-on
for extra storage. This drive is connected via a Promise Ultra 100 TX2
PCI controller card. On boot-up the Promise card reports this drive as
DMA 2 and warns that because it's using a 40-connector cable, its
speed will drop from 66 to 33. The Promise card handles my second (40
GB) hard drive with no problems or warnings. The Promise card shows up
in the Device Manager as a SCSI device (though the two drives it
handles aren't SCSI drives).

I've upgraded the Promise card's BIOS and driver to the latest
versions for Win 98--or at least I think I have. There are no actual
instructions that come with the download for the Promise card. There

right click and save target on this link:
http://www.promise.com/support/file/..._Manual_En.pdf

are a bunch of .vxd driver files, an .inf file, and an .exe file that,
I guess, is supposed to upgrade the BIOS. There's also an autoexec.bat
file with a line calling the same .exe file. I'm not about to replace
my existing autoexec.bat file, which contains a bunch of stuff, with
the one line in the Promise file. I could copy that one line to my
autoexec.bat file but it looks to me as though it would then reflash
the BIOS every time the computer boots. That doesn't seem right to me.
I ran the .exe file from Windows and I also tried to upgrade the
driver in the Device Manager, which informed me that I was already
using the latest version. The Promise site indicates this upgrade
should handle large drives, but I'm not entirely sure that the upgrade
"took".

Windows 98 SE is having problems with this drive. I can transfer large
multimedia files to it and they will show up as being there in Windows
Explorer but they won't play reliably. I can't move the files back off
the drive; I get an "error reading drive" message when I try. Nor can
I reliably execute other operations on large files while they reside
on this disk. I can hear the drive thrashing, over and over, as though
it's struggling to get started, as it tries to access large files. And
any time I access the drive, the next time I reboot, Windows claims
that there may be errors on the drive and runs the DOS-based
ScanDisk--the full version that does a physical check of every
cluster. If I let that run (takes several hours) the system will boot
fine, and will continue to reboot without error unless I attempt to
access the large drive again. However, it doesn't make any difference
in how the drive performs. If I try to run ScanDisk in Windows on this
drive I get a message claiming I don't have enough memory to do so. I
don't get this message if I run ScanDisk in Windows on another drive.

I've already accepted that Win 98 isn't going to handle a drive larger
than 128 GB (even though FAT32 allegedly can handle several terrabytes
of data). I'm willing to repartition and reformat the drive if
necessary. However, the version of fdisk on my Win 98 boot disk simply
can't format this drive without errors, period, and Win 98 doesn't let
me re-partition the disk.

I've tried a couple of third-party partitioning tools. So far I can't
find one that recognizes that this is a 250 GB drive. My understanding

If by chance your using an older version of Partition Magic they won't, but I think
it was at v7 that did recognize larger drives. Also if you have a mark'd out bad
cluster on the drive in question PM will not work with it either.

of what I've read is that while I can't create a partition larger than
128 GB in Win 98, I should be able to create two partitions of about
125 GB each on this drive. How can I do that when no tool can see more
than 137 GB on the drive?

Partition Magic v7 or later or the 'latest version' MS W98x fdisk update will see it,
however, with PM you will need to be sure you have no bad clusters or it will not
work.

I assumed the IDE cable I got to connect this disk to the Promise card
was standard. It's got a standard-looking end on it. So I don't
understand why it's complaining about 40-connector vs 80-connector
issues--unless half the holes on this cable's terminals aren't
actually wired. Is there such a thing as an 80-connector IDE cable
that I can get? If so, will it solve my problem? In other words, is
this simply a speed issue?

If not, what do I need to do to fully use this drive reliably on my
Promise controller under FAT32 on a Win 98 machine?

Besides the 80 wire cable which comes standard with all newer promise cards (although
you're using the older 100 card) You cannot use the old version of 98x fdisk to
format your drive if you did, and for that matter be sure you get the latest fdisk
from MS (also get the W98ME versions of scandisk, defrag although these are not your
current problems but do offer advantages in the future) Another possibility is if
by chance you have any marked out bad clusters on that hard drive, then a 3rd party
like Partition Magic will not work either and you must clear the marked out bad
cluster to working status before you can use PM. Spinrite is a program that can tell
you about any clusters or not, as well as most importantly restore them (in most
cases anyway)

The latest 'bios flash' for your 100 card needs to be v2.20.0.14
http://www.promise.com/support/downl...=bios&os=10 0

The latest 'windows driver' for your 100 card needs to be v2.00.0.39
http://www.promise.com/support/downl...river&os= 100

...period!

Also for the pdf manual for it - right click and save target on this link:
http://www.promise.com/support/file/..._Manual_En.pdf

Although I personally much rather the 133 card !!!
Which as you can see by the Iamge Viewer screenshots there it comes with everything
you would ever need Already included (80 wire cable too).
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...102-007&depa=0

I like the promise cards too, and have a few computers where two of them run two 250
GB hard drives on them and it all works flawlessly in every single aspect. I have
never use 3 hard drives off the controller though (why would I want too anyway)
...having two 250 GB drives is more than enough.

Rick




TIA.

Ken Dibble