setup 7vaxp ultra help needed

[wrinkley]

Just installed a new gigabyte mobo 7vaxp ultra, I am totaly confused on how to set up and what to instal from the cd supplied.
The problem is I do not want the raid ? or do I ??. After a new install of xp home the cd and writer refuse to work, I understand this is a actpi probem. The main reason for this mobo purchase is I want to simply to be able to each channel as follows.

ide 1 for Hd.. ide 2 for cd ? ide3 for a writer ide4 250 zip disk,

Can any one point me in the right direction please.

Rgds Bill

[BipolarBill]

Welcome to SysOpt!

This looks like typical beginner errors.

Don't use or connect to the RAID controller until you do some more research. You cannot connect single drives or CD drives to it at any rate. Move the HDD to the regular primary onboard IDE controller - Master. Jumper the drive as Cable Select and put it on the end of the cable.

Jumper both CD drives as Cable Select and put them both on the secondary IDE controller port.

When you're done, sit down for awhile and read the RAID manual thoroughly.

[wrinkley]

Hi Bipolerbill.

Many thanks for your comments and advice, I take your point regarding reading the blurb that comes with the mobo, however the technical screed left me feeling lost as over the past 10 years I have built/repaired and upgraded a good number of computers for family/friends etc and have never felt so lost,

I still don't know what should be installed and in what order the manual is not clear at all.

Any way as I have 1 80gb hd, a writer, cd, dvd, and a ide zip drv, to be able set up I take it that IDE 3&4 can be used for the writer/dvd and zip drv.

Rgds and thanks
Bill

[BipolarBill]

5 devices? Oh.

The Zip drive should always be a slave for sure. As a matter of fact, I would put it aside until you can purchase another hard drive for a RAID array. The CDR can be used (with CDRW disks) in place of the Zip drive until then.

Why do you need a CD drive? You have 2 others.

I would slave the CD drive to the CDR on IDE2 and the DVD to the HDD on IDE1.

[kevrob1]

BPB, when I used my KG7-Raid board as my main board I turned off the raid setup in the bios and was still able to use the IDE connectors for the purpose that wrinkley mentioned. Might that be possible with his board? The CD-ROM and the CD-RW each had their own channel and functioned fine. Or could that be a feature of specific boards? The ability to do that was the main reason I bought the Abit board in the first place.

[BipolarBill]

I'm told that the Promise "Lite" RAID controller can't use single drives. I know that the Highpoint can use them, however.

[BipolarBill]

I'm not so sure now. I've been reading more about it and the Promise should handle single drives. It cannot, however, use ATAPI drives. I'm not too sure about the Zip drive.

Ok - so make the HDD Master on the Promise. Jumper as Cable Select. When you boot up, set up your "array" (the single drive is actually configured as an array in itself). Connect the CDR and DVD as masters and the others as slaves. Jumper all as Cable Select. If the Zip drive and it's mate have problems, jumper them manually with the Zip as slave.

[wrinkley]

Getting further in the mire, ok I now have just HD,cd,cdr, I have jumpered all as cs,are you saying as well as cs a further jumper on either m or s should be fitted.?

In the bios regarding what to set, promise is set to ata and IDE 1 conductor cable set to ?? Auto/ata33/ata66-100. (set to auto)

Ditto IDE2

Rgds Bill

[BipolarBill]

Use the CS jumper on all drives. Set them all to Auto in BIOS.

You should be ready to install...

[BipolarBill]

Don't forget to go into the Promise BIOS and set the drive up. Have the Promise floppy ready if you're installing Win2K/XP. Press F6 when setup starts to load the drivers. This is not necessary in Win9x/Me.

[wrinkley]

A ha, whats this F6 on install of xp ? no I did not do that so a re-install of xp (nashing of teeth). I do get a message on booy that said "MBUltra 133 not installed".

Just to confirm:
IDE 1 hard disk
Ide 2 Writer (M) & CD (s).

Leave out 3 &4 which is ok for now but I do have a zip drv and a dvd which I thought could have been on 3 &4 that was the main reason for buying a raid board, the write up certainly gives the impression that it can be cofigured as 4 off ata drvs (8 devices) .

will have another go see what happens (still confused)

Rgds Bill

[BipolarBill]

Have you read the Promise booklet? Why not?

You're supposed to press CTRL-F to enter the Promise BIOS and "build the array".

[wrinkley]

BipolaBill.

Yes I have read the book now, and tried to carry out instructions out, got as far as asking for the promise soft on A drv, I have looked under promise on the cd. selected 20276 copied it ato a floppy but it does nothing, can you tell me where this program should be please.

Rgds Bill

[BipolarBill]

Download these and run it.

http://europe.giga-byte.com/MotherBo...mise_20276.exe

[wrinkley]

Many thanks again down loaded the file ok, bu t disaster struck the HD 80gb Ibm decided it had had enough, its a bin job, Ah well another day tomorrow.

Rgds Bill