P4PE - not seeing SATA drives or network card.

I recently aquired a pc with an ASUS P4PE motherboard, not sure exactly
which model it is but on boot up it says "DDR 333" and P4PE briefly, and
there is nothing in the setup that tells me any more details.

Problem #1

I installed a 250 GB seagate sata drive in it, but when trying to
install XP Pro on it it would say that there was no drives present, so I
installed an IDE drive in it and was able to install XP but still can't
see the sata drive, even though it shows up when going through boot up,
and when I enter in (what I am assuming is the RAID) setup with ctrl-F8
it shows up but doesnt really let me do anything. I have another 250GB
seagate but need another power adapter before I can put it in, so I just
want to get it so I can see it. Do I need to have two drives in to use
this built in Promise controller? Is there another way I can get the
drive configured so I can see it?

Problem #2

When I connect to my router with ethernet from the on board NIC, it is
telling me this is a 1394 connection and it wont let me see the
internet. On another PC with a different model of P4PE board this same
LAN port works. On this one it also tells me that my ethernet
controller, multimedia controller, USB controller and RAID controller
are not enabled in the hardware list. Do I need another NIC for this board?


Is there a way I can find out exactly which model I have so that I might
find some drivers etc. from the ASUS site?



thanks in advance

GS wrote:

I installed a 250 GB seagate sata drive in it, but when trying to
install XP Pro on it it would say that there was no drives present, so I
installed an IDE drive in it and was able to install XP but still can't
see the sata drive, even though it shows up when going through boot up,

You must go to the S-ATA controller setup during boot, and setup an
RAID 0+1 to enable use of a single S-ATA disk. Also if you're gonna
boot from the S-ATA you must select boot-device in the BIOS setup.

Download the P4PE documentation from Asus (if you can't find it I can
e-mail you the PDF file)
--
Lars-Erik - http://www.osterud.name - ICQ 7297605
WinXP, Asus P4PE, 2.53GHz, 1GB, MSI 7600GS, SB-Live

Lars-Erik Østerud wrote:
GS wrote:

I installed a 250 GB seagate sata drive in it, but when trying to
install XP Pro on it it would say that there was no drives present, so I
installed an IDE drive in it and was able to install XP but still can't
see the sata drive, even though it shows up when going through boot up,

You must go to the S-ATA controller setup during boot, and setup an
RAID 0+1 to enable use of a single S-ATA disk. Also if you're gonna
boot from the S-ATA you must select boot-device in the BIOS setup.

Download the P4PE documentation from Asus (if you can't find it I can
e-mail you the PDF file)

I thought I went into the ASUS setup and did the 0+1 thing already, but
I'll try it again.

If you could just post me the link to the P4PE docs that would be great,
or if you want you could email it to me at glendotstromquistatgmaildotcom

How do I know though if they are for my model?

God Jul & Tack sa mycket!

GS wrote:

I thought I went into the ASUS setup and did the 0+1 thing already, but
I'll try it again.

The raid controller setup is not in the normal BIOS setup.
It's a separate setup for the RAID controller
(don't remebember what to press to get there)

How do I know though if they are for my model?

If you have S-ATA and GB-LAN you have the same version I have
--
Lars-Erik - http://www.osterud.name - ICQ 7297605
WinXP, Asus P4PE, 2.53GHz, 1GB, MSI 7600GS, SB-Live

The P4PE, which I used to own, is an older motherboard whose BIOS can only
recognize up to 137 GB harddrives. Secondly you have to install the
motherboard's SATA controller drivers from the motherboard's installation CD
before the board will see SATA harddrives.

--
--DaveW
"GS" wrote in message news:Mpxbj.32496$UZ4.4995@edtnps89...
I recently aquired a pc with an ASUS P4PE motherboard, not sure exactly
which model it is but on boot up it says "DDR 333" and P4PE briefly, and
there is nothing in the setup that tells me any more details.

Problem #1

I installed a 250 GB seagate sata drive in it, but when trying to install
XP Pro on it it would say that there was no drives present, so I installed
an IDE drive in it and was able to install XP but still can't see the sata
drive, even though it shows up when going through boot up, and when I
enter in (what I am assuming is the RAID) setup with ctrl-F8 it shows up
but doesnt really let me do anything. I have another 250GB seagate but
need another power adapter before I can put it in, so I just want to get
it so I can see it. Do I need to have two drives in to use this built in
Promise controller? Is there another way I can get the drive configured so
I can see it?

Problem #2

When I connect to my router with ethernet from the on board NIC, it is
telling me this is a 1394 connection and it wont let me see the internet.
On another PC with a different model of P4PE board this same LAN port
works. On this one it also tells me that my ethernet controller,
multimedia controller, USB controller and RAID controller are not enabled
in the hardware list. Do I need another NIC for this board?


Is there a way I can find out exactly which model I have so that I might
find some drivers etc. from the ASUS site?



thanks in advance

DaveW wrote:
The P4PE, which I used to own, is an older motherboard whose BIOS can only
recognize up to 137 GB harddrives. Secondly you have to install the
motherboard's SATA controller drivers from the motherboard's installation CD
before the board will see SATA harddrives.


Is there any way I can find out the exact model of the MB and download
the iso or needed programs so that I can enable the SATA? I have no cd
with this PC.

GS wrote:
DaveW wrote:
The P4PE, which I used to own, is an older motherboard whose BIOS can
only recognize up to 137 GB harddrives. Secondly you have to install
the motherboard's SATA controller drivers from the motherboard's
installation CD before the board will see SATA harddrives.


Is there any way I can find out the exact model of the MB and download
the iso or needed programs so that I can enable the SATA? I have no cd
with this PC.


p4pe
P4pe2-x
p4pe-bp
p4pe-x
p4pe-x/se
p4pe-x/te

Two different LAN chips were used. One option was
gigabit lan BCM5702. Another was 10/100BT lan BCM4401.
You can look at the board and see which one you got.

Check the white lettering on the motherboard for a
motherboard name. You can also use a utility to try to ID the
board. This is the download page, and you'd type the name in
there, to get to the driver files.

http://support.asus.com/download/dow...Language=en-us

CPUZ is a pretty small program, and will display a name for the motherboard.
There are other utilities as well, but some install more unnecessary
software than others. This program is pretty lightweight.

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

In terms of getting a SATA driver to install, most of this
fine tuning of motherboard name is not necessary. The download
is eventually going to lead to this directory.

ftp://ftp.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/ide/pdc20376/

The small files are three different versions of INF based
driver files. pdc20376_15.zip is 349KB. You would copy the
contents of the "Promise" folder (but not the Promise folder
itself), to a floppy, such that txtsetup.oem was at the top
level of the floppy. That makes the floppy suitable for
pressing F6 during a Windows install, so that you have an
opportunity to install a RAID driver and install the OS on
the SATA disk(s) in a RAID mode.

If you go to Device Manager, you could also use the contents
of that ZIP, to satisfy a driver update operation for the
PDC20376. That would prepare the PDC20376 for the connection
of a data disk (using Lars's recommended fake RAID setup, of
using a single drive and declaring it as some kind of RAID).
You'd shut down, connect the disk, enter the BIOS and press
control-F to enter the Fasttrak BIOS screen, set up the single
disk RAID, save and exit, then boot into Windows and use
Disk Management (in one of the Control Panels) to finish
preparing the disk for data storage.

The other thing in that FTP directory, is the PAM file. It
is larger than the driver files. PAM stands for Promise
Array Management, and is a program that runs in Windows.
You use it for monitoring the status of RAID arrays. For
the operation of a single disk RAID, it would be a pretty
useless program, but you can download it and play with it
anyway.

HTH,
Paul

Paul wrote:
GS wrote:
DaveW wrote:
The P4PE, which I used to own, is an older motherboard whose BIOS can
only recognize up to 137 GB harddrives. Secondly you have to install
the motherboard's SATA controller drivers from the motherboard's
installation CD before the board will see SATA harddrives.


Is there any way I can find out the exact model of the MB and download
the iso or needed programs so that I can enable the SATA? I have no cd
with this PC.


p4pe
P4pe2-x
p4pe-bp
p4pe-x
p4pe-x/se
p4pe-x/te

Two different LAN chips were used. One option was
gigabit lan BCM5702. Another was 10/100BT lan BCM4401.
You can look at the board and see which one you got.

Check the white lettering on the motherboard for a
motherboard name. You can also use a utility to try to ID the
board. This is the download page, and you'd type the name in
there, to get to the driver files.

http://support.asus.com/download/dow...Language=en-us

CPUZ is a pretty small program, and will display a name for the
motherboard.
There are other utilities as well, but some install more unnecessary
software than others. This program is pretty lightweight.

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

In terms of getting a SATA driver to install, most of this
fine tuning of motherboard name is not necessary. The download
is eventually going to lead to this directory.

ftp://ftp.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/ide/pdc20376/

The small files are three different versions of INF based
driver files. pdc20376_15.zip is 349KB. You would copy the
contents of the "Promise" folder (but not the Promise folder
itself), to a floppy, such that txtsetup.oem was at the top
level of the floppy. That makes the floppy suitable for
pressing F6 during a Windows install, so that you have an
opportunity to install a RAID driver and install the OS on
the SATA disk(s) in a RAID mode.

If you go to Device Manager, you could also use the contents
of that ZIP, to satisfy a driver update operation for the
PDC20376. That would prepare the PDC20376 for the connection
of a data disk (using Lars's recommended fake RAID setup, of
using a single drive and declaring it as some kind of RAID).
You'd shut down, connect the disk, enter the BIOS and press
control-F to enter the Fasttrak BIOS screen, set up the single
disk RAID, save and exit, then boot into Windows and use
Disk Management (in one of the Control Panels) to finish
preparing the disk for data storage.

The other thing in that FTP directory, is the PAM file. It
is larger than the driver files. PAM stands for Promise
Array Management, and is a program that runs in Windows.
You use it for monitoring the status of RAID arrays. For
the operation of a single disk RAID, it would be a pretty
useless program, but you can download it and play with it
anyway.

HTH,
Paul

Thanks - that helps a lot. If I get time over the next day or so I'll
try it. I have two identical 250GB SATA drives, ideally I'd like to
leave the OS on the 60GB IDE drive, (perhaps also load a linux partition
on it) and have the two 250GB drives for data, if I have to arrange
these in a RAID array of sorts thats ok too, in fact mirroring the data
drive would be a good idea if thats possible. I guess the other factor
here though is if this board has a 137GB ceiling for HDD's like Dave
said then I am going to have to find another machine for these drives.

GS wrote:
Paul wrote:
GS wrote:
DaveW wrote:
The P4PE, which I used to own, is an older motherboard whose BIOS
can only recognize up to 137 GB harddrives. Secondly you have to
install the motherboard's SATA controller drivers from the
motherboard's installation CD before the board will see SATA
harddrives.


Is there any way I can find out the exact model of the MB and
download the iso or needed programs so that I can enable the SATA? I
have no cd with this PC.


p4pe
P4pe2-x
p4pe-bp
p4pe-x
p4pe-x/se
p4pe-x/te

Two different LAN chips were used. One option was
gigabit lan BCM5702. Another was 10/100BT lan BCM4401.
You can look at the board and see which one you got.

Check the white lettering on the motherboard for a
motherboard name. You can also use a utility to try to ID the
board. This is the download page, and you'd type the name in
there, to get to the driver files.

http://support.asus.com/download/dow...Language=en-us

CPUZ is a pretty small program, and will display a name for the
motherboard.
There are other utilities as well, but some install more unnecessary
software than others. This program is pretty lightweight.

http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

In terms of getting a SATA driver to install, most of this
fine tuning of motherboard name is not necessary. The download
is eventually going to lead to this directory.

ftp://ftp.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/ide/pdc20376/

The small files are three different versions of INF based
driver files. pdc20376_15.zip is 349KB. You would copy the
contents of the "Promise" folder (but not the Promise folder
itself), to a floppy, such that txtsetup.oem was at the top
level of the floppy. That makes the floppy suitable for
pressing F6 during a Windows install, so that you have an
opportunity to install a RAID driver and install the OS on
the SATA disk(s) in a RAID mode.

If you go to Device Manager, you could also use the contents
of that ZIP, to satisfy a driver update operation for the
PDC20376. That would prepare the PDC20376 for the connection
of a data disk (using Lars's recommended fake RAID setup, of
using a single drive and declaring it as some kind of RAID).
You'd shut down, connect the disk, enter the BIOS and press
control-F to enter the Fasttrak BIOS screen, set up the single
disk RAID, save and exit, then boot into Windows and use
Disk Management (in one of the Control Panels) to finish
preparing the disk for data storage.

The other thing in that FTP directory, is the PAM file. It
is larger than the driver files. PAM stands for Promise
Array Management, and is a program that runs in Windows.
You use it for monitoring the status of RAID arrays. For
the operation of a single disk RAID, it would be a pretty
useless program, but you can download it and play with it
anyway.

HTH,
Paul

Thanks - that helps a lot. If I get time over the next day or so I'll
try it. I have two identical 250GB SATA drives, ideally I'd like to
leave the OS on the 60GB IDE drive, (perhaps also load a linux partition
on it) and have the two 250GB drives for data, if I have to arrange
these in a RAID array of sorts thats ok too, in fact mirroring the data
drive would be a good idea if thats possible. I guess the other factor
here though is if this board has a 137GB ceiling for HDD's like Dave
said then I am going to have to find another machine for these drives.

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf

"The inaugural SATA interface coincides with ATA-6 and is therefore
equivalent with regards to 48-bit Addressing. SATA devices are ready
to support greater than 137GB at the hardware and BIOS levels. However,
since native operating system ATA device drivers can communicate with
either type of interface, OS limitations may still apply."

So what that tells you, is at the physical interface level, there is
not an issue with the SATA connectors. And Windows shouldn't have a
problem with a RAID controller (SCSI emulation).

Where your P4PE might have had a problem, would be with the
IDE interfaces on the Southbridge. As far as Asus is concerned,
the initial BIOS release 1001 was ready for 48 bit LBA on the P4PE
Southbridge interfaces. (My assumption is this document only
addresses the Southbridge on the board, as there is no detail
given about separate RAID controllers.)

http://support.asus.com/technicaldoc...e=en-us&NO=501

Not a problem in any case, as long as you have good backups.

I like to test these theories, by filling the drive or array
with data, until you get past the 137GB point, without the
file system being instantly corrupted. I don't know if there
is a nice status flag that can guarantee there is not going to
be a problem.

Paul

DaveW wrote:

The P4PE, which I used to own, is an older motherboard whose BIOS can only
recognize up to 137 GB harddrives. Secondly you have to install the
motherboard's SATA controller drivers from the motherboard's installation CD
before the board will see SATA harddrives.

The S-ATA does not have these limitations at all. But you need XP SP2.
And as you said, you need those drivers for the Promise S-ATA.

I have a 250GB drive and that even works from Win98se (dual boot).
It's not a limitation in Win98/XP but in the harddisk drivers.
So with the Promise S-ATA drivers the limitation is all gone.
--
Lars-Erik - http://www.osterud.name - ICQ 7297605
WinXP, Asus P4PE, 2.53GHz, 1GB, MSI 7600GS, SB-Live