Good news, Promise SATA RAID users!

Wabbit · #1 2nd June 2004, 12:31 AM

Currently Promise have available only driver source code that compiles for Kernel 2.4. See here. But I received a response from linux@promise.nl to my query about an update for Kernel 2.6.

"The 2.6 for SATA will be released July/August."

So anyone with TX4000/376/378/S150 TX series controllers need not suffer too much longer.

Tony.

jcstille · #2 2nd June 2004, 09:14 AM

Always good to see more driver support, thanks for the update.

vijaykiran · #3 2nd June 2004, 01:05 PM

Hello Wabbit,

Two quick questions -

I am having a Maxtor SATA/150 Ultra ATA/133 combo PCI card.

1. Would I be able to use promise SATA/150 drivers to get the maxtor card working? I saw that both of them are exactly the same make and function wise.

Promise description: http://www.promise.com/product/produ...=97&familyId=3

Maxtor description:
http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Ma...cessories/SATA

Also,
http://www.linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html
mentions that maxtor's is a relabelled Promise FastTrak TX2plus card.

2. If I hook up a Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 hard drive to the combo card (which I am) , would I need to use SATA drivers or ATA drivers?

Thanks,
Vijay.

Wabbit · #4 2nd June 2004, 03:38 PM

1) If the card is a relabelled Promise FastTrak TX2plus then it will have Promise's Vendor ID which is 105A. I'm 80% sure that Linux identifies the driver to load by the device's vendor ID and device ID. But if you want to be absolutely positive that the card will work, try one of the existing FastTrak TX2plus drivers for RedHat 9/8/7.3 or Turbo/Suse linux available on Promise's website. If your card works for one of those distributions, there will be no problem when the Kernel 2.6 drivers arrive.

[late edit. oops... the above should read: If the card is a relabelled Promise FastTrak TX2plus then it will have Promise's Vendor/Device ID of 105A/3371].

2) The README file included with the driver mentions only the controllers the driver is meant for, not the HDD type attached to them. So I figure the driver will work with both PATA and SATA HDDs, though I am not certain. It comes back to just trying one of the existing drivers.

Tony.

Wabbit · #5 2nd June 2004, 05:37 PM

vijaykiran,

I've had a look at the .INF file for the Maxtor SATA/150 PCI card. The information in that linuxmafia link you gave me is wrong. The Vendor/Device ID (105A/3375) for your card matches the "Promise SATA150 TX2plus" which is *non-RAID*, unlike the "Promise FastTrak SATA150 TX2plus " (105A/3371) which does support RAID.

Still, as far as Kernel 2.6 compatibility goes, Promise are sure to update the driver source code for the non-FastTrak versions, too.

Tony.

vijaykiran · #6 3rd June 2004, 04:42 AM

Thank you very much for the info Wabbit. So, I wouldnt be able to install fedora core 2 unless promise release the driver source codes. So, in the meanwhile, I will install rh9, and later upgrade/reinstall fedora.

I had trouble even installing rh8 and rh9 because I downloaded incorrect drivers previously. I just downloaded the correct drivers. I will do it tonight and come up with any questions.

Thank you very much,
Long live linux.
vijay.

vijaykiran · #7 3rd June 2004, 05:34 PM

Thank you very very much Wabbit. You just made my life a lot more easier and breeze.

Instead of finding someone who has FC2 with native kernel running on their machine, and getting the source code to compile and get the drivers, I chose to wait until July/August until promise releases the source for 2.6 kernels.

I then wondered why my PCI card doesnt recognize the drivers compiled for RH9.0. And surely as you pointed out, I was using the wrong drivers. I am now using the drivers as you suggested, and now my PCI card and RH9.0 are now talking to each other. I am so very happy to get to this stage.

My doubt about whether maxtor card recognizes promise drivers are cleared too.

After installing the driver, I am able to see my hard drive as /dev/sda, which is very good. However, I stopped the installation at that point because, I have some important data on the drive, and I am backing it up before I start the installation as a dual boot of winxp and RH9.0.

My partition magic gives me all sorts of errors and doesnt like 160GB hard drive. So, I will have to figure out a way to partition the disk using disk druid in linux. I havent done this before, but I am sure there should be a way.

Thanks to every one guys for giving me great info and suggestions.

For anyone who wanted to know a little more info on whats going on about these drivers, please refer to the following thread:
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/sho...=&postid=16641

Thanks,
Vijay.

Wabbit · #8 3rd June 2004, 07:24 PM

You're welcome, vijaykiran.

If you have any queries about using Disk Druid to manually partition the HDD, fire away.

Tony.

vijaykiran · #9 5th June 2004, 08:46 PM

Hi,
I finally managed to install RH9.0 on my machine. I felt relieved, but only to get into another issue.

My PC contains 2 drives (C: & E: <windows terminology> ). Winxp is installed on C (30GB) and E is a secondary storage drive (160GB).

By the time I installed RH9, I was already having some data on E drive, which I knew would be deleted automatically without proper partitioning. I was prepared for that by backing it up.

I used disk druid to do the partitioning with default partition schemes (1GB for swap, 100MB for /boot and 40GB for /). So, that should leave me around 118GB of hard drive space. I am not able to find this space anywhere - neither in Linux nor in windows. What do I need to do to be able to see that space in both windows and Linux. The drive was originally formatted as FAT32, but during disk druid partitioning, it assigned the remaining space as "free" but I didnt see anything such as FAT32.

Any suggestions? Wabbit, I think you should surely have an answer for my situation. Please let me know.

Thanks,
Vijay.

vijaykiran · #10 5th June 2004, 09:04 PM

Nevermind guys,
I had it figured out. My partition magic luckily is working now. Just as a reference for anyone, I followed the following steps:

1. right clicked on My computer and selected properties
2. In the hardware tab, I selected device manager.
3. In it, I first searched if the device manager recognizes the 160GB hard drive. It did recognize the drive. That means, we are on a safer side. There is no way, that we get the data back from the drive because linux installer formatted the drive while installing it. So, if anyone needs to install on an existing drive and prefers to retain the data on it, make a backup of it and also create a partition before linux is installed. In my case it wasnt possible because partition magic previously failed to perform.
4. Then I opened partition magic and I found that the remaining 120GB out of 160GB is still there but the space is unallocated. So, I converted that space to FAT32 in it and applied the changes.
5. Restarted the system.

Everything works fine. I have a little problem with my linux recognizing my wireless card, but I believe that would be a whole new topic/thread next time.

I am glad that I learnt so many things in the past 2 weeks. Thanks everyone.

-vijay.

lemonade · #11 24th August 2004, 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wabbit

Currently Promise have available only driver source code that compiles for Kernel 2.4. See here. But I received a response from linux@promise.nl to my query about an update for Kernel 2.6.

"The 2.6 for SATA will be released July/August."

So anyone with TX4000/376/378/S150 TX series controllers need not suffer too much longer.

Hope they'll release drivers this month, because it's already late August...

Wabbit · #12 24th August 2004, 08:54 AM

I've been checking their website for updated driver source code almost daily since July 1st, but nothing. Neither have the linux drivers for any of Promise's other products been updated since last year. Oh, well.. . Still a week to go. Then I'll start pestering them again.

Tony

Daniel_at · #13 24th August 2004, 09:33 AM

Same for me too...

Im waiting for 2.6 Drivers since i insalled FC2 on my secondary PC and saw how wonderfull it is... Wanted to get it on my primary PC. On a IDE-ATA Drive which is plugged to the onboard Promise kontroller...

recently posted here:
my Post

Hm... i hope they get it fixed soon!

gmontag · #14 24th August 2004, 06:19 PM

I am waiting not so patiently. I have a asus motherboard with 30376 controller. I want to run linux and windows. Current problem while waiting for driver is how to attach multiple drives to this system. I want to run 2 hard drives and a CDRW and DVD. When I plug in everything it will not work. I read in the ASUS manual that you cannot connect Slave drives to the controller so Everything is set as a master drive. I have an additional IDE controller so I should have 2 masters there, 2 master controllers on the motherboard, and the SATA/raid controller. I do not need the SATA/RAID but do want to use the Ultra ATA feature of this motherboard. When I try an install everything on the system the error is no operating system found. Now I can pull drives and make the error messages go away. Not specifically linux at the moment but a bios problem. This problems occurs even when try and modify through the bios which drive and controller is booting first. I was hoping someone may have some tips. All the hard drives are IDE.

Wabbit · #15 25th August 2004, 12:57 AM

What's your motherboard model? What speed ATA drives to you have -- ATA100? ATA133? Do you want them RAIDed? And which drives did you attach to which controllers?? :-)

Tony.