Maxtor 120GB on Silicon Image Controller woes

[Will Rickards WT]

Here I intend to chronicle my woes trying to get my maxtor 120GB working attached to the Silicon Image Controller.

How I want to have it hooked it up:
Onboard via southbridge controller
PM: Pioneer DVD 105S
PS: 250MB Zip
SM: Verbatim (rebadge Liteon) CD-RW
Silicon Image Controller
PM: Maxtor 120GB DM+9
SM: IBM 30GB 75GXP

Remember the 98 installation that ended up killing my WDC 10GB hard drive? Well the whole point of setting up the 10GB drive was so I could benchmark the Maxtor since I have data on the IBM that I could move yet.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Phase 1

I hook everything up as above.
The directions for the controller card say to boot from cd or floppy when installing windows 2000. Then press f6 and point it to the cd-rom for the drivers.

I booted off the CD (win2k with SP2 slipstreamed in).
I couldn't specify the drivers because it would only let me input drivers from the A: drive.

So off to work the next day, I make a bunch of floppies with everything on it:
PowerMax
MaxBlast
Silicon IDE Drivers
Silicon RAID Drivers (mine is a raid card but I'm not using that feature)
Silicon Flash update with latest bios
98 boot disk
Ghost disk

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Again boot off CD and try to install windows 2000 on the maxtor.
Using the raid floppy drivers.
I am able to create the partitions:
1GB swap
117GB win2k

But it won't let me install.
Says something about an Unknown Disk and how it can't write information to it?

So I figure fine, I'll try this maxblast software to partition the disk and get it ready for win2k.
It crashes whenever I run it. From the bootable CD, crash.
From the floppy, crash.
After I put the cards driver on the maxblast floppy and add a line to config.sys to load it, still crashes.

At this point I'm a but annoyed.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

bit annoyed that is

So I figure try ghost.
No driver loaded but ghost sees both drives so I figure everything is cool and proceed with disk to disk copy. Ghost tells me it won't be bootable, I say ok.
Many hours later I come to check on the machine.
It has rebooted and tells me there is a disk read error.
I don't know what the heck happened but I didn't want to image the old drive to the new one anyway. I just wanted to see if I could boot off it.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

I move stuff around so I can boot off the old drive.
I put the IBM on the onboard primary master.
I then setup and format the new drive attached to the controller after loading the drivers.

While I'm back in a functional windows, I decide to:
1) slipstream SP4 onto win2kpro setup cd and add the drivers to that too
2) test the other card I changed - the modem ISA for PCI softmodem.

#2 Agere(Lucent) PCI Winmodem proved to be difficult in and of itself. The drivers just seemed to die while loading. After like 5 reboots and using the drivers on the CD that came with the modem, I have a functional modem (although is listed as #2 in my modem list).

Tonight I'll try to ghost my current drive to the new partition. Then I'll change the partitions on the IBM so I have a win98 partition to load the benchmarks on. Then ghost back to the IBM so I still have the data.

 

[blakerwry]

I have seen several posts that sound like yours. I can empathise.

From what I've seen many of these S-ATA drivers (as well as hardware) have been rushed out the door... and motherboard manuf. have been rushing to integrate any kind of S-ATA they can get their hands on.

I think the 3ware and intel(integrated) S-ATA controllers are probably the best at the moment, with the best cheapy controllers being promise or silicon image (only because they have a past history of correcting their drivers and offering firmware updates to fix mistakes)

 

[Will Rickards WT]

It is an Ultra133 RAID Controller.
Specifically: This SYBA Card

 

[Will Rickards]

ghost again rebooted. Windows thinks the ntfs partition is corrupted and unreadable! I've check the drive with windows chkdsk after formatting with a full scan and it came out perfect. So it isn't the partition. Must be some ghost 5.1c limitation. Maybe there is a ghost switch I need to use?

So I tried the windows installation from CD, both a slipstream and original windows 2000 pro cd). Both gave the same error. But it may be due to the corrupt ntfs partition because of ghost. I'll repartition, format and try again.

The error reads

Disk I/O error: Status = 00000100
Disk I/O error: Status = 00000100
Disk I/O error: Status = 00000100
Disk I/O error: Status = 00000100
Disk I/O error: Status = 00000100

Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration...

Disk I/O error: Status = 00000100
Disk I/O error: Status = 00000100
Disk I/O error: Status = 00000100
Disk I/O error: Status = 00000100
Disk I/O error: Status = 00000100
NTDETECT failed

At this point I'm thinking about putting just the CD Drives on the new controller! But I figured anything is better than the VIA ide controller.

 

[Mercutio]

I've found ghost operation to be problematic on drives > 80GB. It's not just you. I'm using 2003 Enterprise, if that helps.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Bah! The repartitioning and formatting did not help. Same error. I even tried disconnecting the old drive so all there was: CD drive and new hard drive connected to new controller. This error occurs before any F6 prompt.

Okay so I didn't want to put it on the onboard controller and set it up because I didn't think I would be able to boot off it when I moved to the add-in controller. But I think I'll try that because all I'll have to do is edit the boot.ini to point to the controller before moving it, correct?

I wouldn't even know who to contact for support at this point if I needed it:
Microsoft? - their software won't install
Syba? - who makes the card
Silicon Image? - who wrote the drivers
Maxtor? - who made the drive

This is driving me crazy!
Maybe I'll try and flash the bios on the card, couldn't hurt.
current version 3.0.93
latest version 3.2.04

Maybe I'll try removing the other cards (nic, firewire, modem).

Oh and merc, any advice on the Agere (Lucent) softmodem drivers? Is there some trick to get these to load the first time?

 

[Mercutio]

I use the set from the Lucent/Agere web site. I thought 2000 had the driver for that modem built in, but I might be wrong. Anyway, I set up the modem by using "update driver" in Device manager, and if it doesn't work, I'll grab another modem. I have better things to do than futz around with Winmodems.

I prefer older Conexant winmodems (the V.90 chipset, not the new V.92) or the Intel/Cirrus HaM, which is a fairly lousy modem but at least installs properly every time I try.

 

[blakerwry]

I'm glad someone else agrees with me on the Conexant winmodems...

 

[Will Rickards WT]

The modem was like $15 or less. I figured what the heck, since some sites seemed to like the lucent chip. Only after I got it did I discover it was the DSPless version. But monitoring the CPU usage while using the modem seems to indicate it has no real impact on the system.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

I flashed the bios on the card. It was no help at all. It did change where the card's bios appears though. Instead of clearing the screen first it appears after the hard drive detection listing on the same screen.

I put the thing on the onboard controller and ran powermax to test the drive. Everything is fine. I'm using maxblast to write zeroes to the drive now.

I'm going to try installing windows while it is on the onboard controller and then moving it. I think that is my best bet at this point.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Do you think trying to make two primary partitions was the problem?

I made one primary 1024MB partition and one primary for the rest of the drive.

Installing windows while on the onboard controller worked fine after partitioning from the old windows installation's disk management.

I think I'll try reformatting it and putting it on the controller one more time.
Maybe the two primary partitions caused the disk I/O error.

 

[Jan Kivar]

Do you think trying to make two primary partitions was the problem?

I made one primary 1024MB partition and one primary for the rest of the drive.

Installing windows while on the onboard controller worked fine after partitioning from the old windows installation's disk management.

I think I'll try reformatting it and putting it on the controller one more time.
Maybe the two primary partitions caused the disk I/O error.

I don't think so. If it would be a problem, then Windows' Disk Management wouldn't allow You to do so in the first place.

Cheers,

Jan

 

[Will Rickards WT]

It wasn't the two primary partitions.
It gave the same error when I tried it with extended and primary partitions.
I wonder if it would have worked with just one big primary partition taking up the whole drive. I don't remember if I tried that.

Anyway since it would not install booting off the cd with the hard drive on the new controller. I sucked it up and used the onboard controller to install windows. I got it all installed and figured I might need to change the boot.ini before I moved it to the new controller. I put lines in the boot.ini for multi(1) and scsi(0) which were the most likely names for the controller. However, after connecting it to the controller, it still used multi(0). So no boot.ini changes necessary. So I'm in business...

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Except for when I hooked everything up, my old hard drive isn't seen by windows! It shows up in the controller bios screen. It sounds like it is booting up fine. It passed the quick test in powermax (maxtor's diag utility). Windows sees it in device manager. But it does not appear in disk management. Nor does it appear in my computer.

So I figured just uninstall the device from device manager and reboot. Nope.
So I tried pulling the cable from the drive, booting so windows detects its abscence, hooking the drive back up, and booting so windows detects it as new. Nope
So I tried resetting the ESCD or DMI or whatever the heck that option is in the bios. Nope.

??? Below is the configuration

Onboard - Via
PM Pioneer DVD 105S
SM Iomega Zip 250 ATAPI
PM Liteon CD-RW
SM None
Syba - Silicon Image
PM - Maxtor 120GB
SM - IBM 30GB

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Regarding the modem:
There seem to be different drivers for the DSP and no DSP versions.
The versions on agere's website (v8.28) are for the DSP versions.

I found the latest drivers for my modem on www.lectron.net.
I have the I56LVP-F50. I also got a Modem On Hold application from there and will test it to see if it works.

So all I have to fix is the missing hard drive and I'm all set!

 

[Clocker]

At this point I only have one word for you...

shotgun

:boom:

 

[Will Rickards WT]

It works!

So I switched the driver to the IDE instead of RAID. THen I rebooted and flashed the card to the IDE version instead of the RAID version. And presto, my old drive shows up.

 

[blakerwry]

looks to be a case of driver error... good thing it didn't happen in an automobile

::hyuck:: ::hyuck::

 

[Will Rickards WT]

First off, you know my WD 10GB backup drive died in this whole process.
I also back up my important data (contents of My Documents folder minus the stored video) to a 250MB zip disk. Well wouldn't you know it the zip disk developed bad sectors, like 40KB worth. Since I stored everything as a single zip file on it, this was not good.

Fortunately, I still had the originals on the old IBM 30GB 75GXP which is now my backup drive and still running without problems.

 

[Fushigi]

When it rains it pours!

 

[Mercutio]

WD Hard disk + Iomega ZIP + 75GXP = hilarity ensues.

 

[blakerwry]

What, no K-Hypermedia CD-R?

 

[Mercutio]

Don't knock the newegg.com CD-R brand of choice. They're really not bad discs. I probably have three or four hundred of them. Didn't have a problem on a single one.

My failure rate for zip media was about 1 in 3, though.

 

[blakerwry]

are you kidding me????? I bought a single spindle a year or more back... they are absolute crap. crap. crap. (i still have most of them unburned.. somtimes i write a small file onto them if I need a CD temporarily)

I only use Verbatim or TY now. I have used Riteks successfully, but why pay the same amount for Ritek when i can get better quality TY disks.

 

[Fushigi]

I've gone through a hundred or so of the K-Hypermedias without problems. They burn just fine at 32X and 48X. A friend has gone through several hundred and still buys them; he's never mentioned making any coasters at all. We get them at Microcenter when they're like $4 after rebate for 50. I've got almost a full 50-spindle right now.

 

[blakerwry]

I've gone through a hundred or so of the K-Hypermedias without problems. They burn just fine at 32X and 48X. A friend has gone through several hundred and still buys them; he's never mentioned making any coasters at all. We get them at Microcenter when they're like $4 after rebate for 50. I've got almost a full 50-spindle right now.

maybe I just got a bad spindle (it was a 100 spindle)... mine were maid by CMC(the crapyiest media producer).

I've tried burning using several burners, I think these were supposed to be 24 or 32X when Memorex and TY were marketed as 16x. What I found is that the ONLY somewhat reliable speed was 4x using only the 1st half of the disks.


in the CDRinfo forums I've heard stories similar to mine.

 

[blakerwry]

*pl3aS3 I9n0r3 a|| sp3||in9 3rR0rs

 

[Will Rickards WT]

Update

Everything still running great.
I need to perform another backup soon though.

That modem on hold app works so I can tell when someone is calling.
Only problem is I have no idea if the answer button works or not. When someone calls you get dialog with info and answer and ignore buttons. I tried clicking the answer button and then picking up the phone attached to the modem phone port but I don't get anything, phone sounds dead. Not a real problem as most times I just want to know that they called and will call them back.

Anybody need/want that Promise Ultra33 controller?

 

[Will Rickards]

Just so you all know, in order to use the answer function for the modem on hold app, you can't use the phone port of the modem. You have to split the line and hook the phone up to that. Or use a phone from somewhere else in the house. Basically every phone will work but the one you expect to work, the one hooked up to the phone port of the modem!

I threw the promise controller out along with the WD doorstop and some other old hardware I had laying around.

I'm currently looking for a modem to support type 1 callerID (like a callerid box that tells you who is calling when you aren't online). I want it to also support voice functions so that I can use my PC as an answering machine.
Any of those conexant ones support that?

I've been back on broadband for a while now so no more using the modem to go online for me. And I'd use the laptop's modem to connect to clients. So this modem thing is a way for me to get rid of my callerid box that keeps eating my batteries. All the callerid boxes with power adaptor are more than these modems are selling for.

 

[Will Rickards]

As long as I'm resurrecting old threads of mine....
I might as well update this one.
I did find a modem that supports type 1 callerid and I have that working so I know who is calling before I pick up. Unfortunately the modem was an out of date model (56K though) that I had to buy off ebay. It had an intel chip in it, not sure of the exact chip number. Maybe I'll look when I get home.

 

[Will Rickards]

Modem TrendNet TFM-PCIV92I
I thought I took a picture of it before putting it in but I can't find it now.
So I don't know the specific chipset being used but it is an intel chipset.

 

[Will Rickards]

Intel 537EP chipset