A7V600-X / HPT 371 problem
Hi guys 
I have a relatively noob question for you probably, but it's something that has kept me busy for 5 full hours now and I'm really starting to get ticked off at this annoying raid controller !
The hardware :
mainboard - A7V600-X (AMD mainboard, dirt-cheap no extras)
controller - Highpoint Rocket 133S (HPT371, 1 IDE-bay, also dirt-cheap, purely for data retrieval from my old array that was hooked up onto a mainboard's raidcontroller (HPT370) that died)
The problem :
Taken directly from the Highpoint manual : "If user wants to combine 133S BIOS into the system BIOS, please follow the following procedures. This is only needed in case of 133S, not 133 normal."
and a little bit further down the road :
" combine the bios by typing the following command:
cbrom award.bin/PCI biosxxxx.rom"
This doesn't work. Adding a space between award.bin and /PCI however solved that lovely 'typo'.
Additional info on this bit : award.bin is the BIOS extracted with Aflash, which is supposed to be used on all A7V mainboards (AWDFLASH.EXE is useless for me). I replaced biosxxxx.rom with biosv12.rom from the floppy that came with the Rocket 133S card (/BIOS dir).
Now the result is :
CBROM V2.15 (C)Award Software 2001 All Rights Reserved.
Adding biosv12.rom ... 51.6%
award.bin have not enough space for adding ROM. (Over 46BFh bytes)
Right!
So I wanted to check what was up with my award extracted bios file and type in this :
cbrom award.bin /d
and the result :
0 System BIOS 7262D120h (-205803D23840Bh(100169randomeurosignsstarthere and blurt onto the next line)
1 Other (0000:0702) 1474643h(20945.541034702h(1065169.75K)
Total compress code space = yadda yadda (1001825.00K)
Total compressed code size = yadda yadda (2066866.75K)
Remain compressed code space = yadda yadda (-1065041.75K)
A negative figure for remaining space? That can't be good.
Now the part which I'm pissed about is that
1 Mainboards don't come with Highpoint controllers anymore, otherwise I wouldn't have gone through this ordeal
2 Controllers are either expensive (although worth it), or cheap and require 'expert' knowledge. Read this as : If *I* can't fix it, how can you expect a lament to do it ?
So my question is simple : How do I convince this system to recognise my raid controller so that I can finally enjoy this new system ?
I have a relatively noob question for you probably, but it's something that has kept me busy for 5 full hours now and I'm really starting to get ticked off at this annoying raid controller !
The hardware :
mainboard - A7V600-X (AMD mainboard, dirt-cheap no extras)
controller - Highpoint Rocket 133S (HPT371, 1 IDE-bay, also dirt-cheap, purely for data retrieval from my old array that was hooked up onto a mainboard's raidcontroller (HPT370) that died)
The problem :
Taken directly from the Highpoint manual : "If user wants to combine 133S BIOS into the system BIOS, please follow the following procedures. This is only needed in case of 133S, not 133 normal."
and a little bit further down the road :
" combine the bios by typing the following command:
cbrom award.bin/PCI biosxxxx.rom"
This doesn't work. Adding a space between award.bin and /PCI however solved that lovely 'typo'.
Additional info on this bit : award.bin is the BIOS extracted with Aflash, which is supposed to be used on all A7V mainboards (AWDFLASH.EXE is useless for me). I replaced biosxxxx.rom with biosv12.rom from the floppy that came with the Rocket 133S card (/BIOS dir).
Now the result is :
CBROM V2.15 (C)Award Software 2001 All Rights Reserved.
Adding biosv12.rom ... 51.6%
award.bin have not enough space for adding ROM. (Over 46BFh bytes)
Right!
So I wanted to check what was up with my award extracted bios file and type in this :
cbrom award.bin /d
and the result :
0 System BIOS 7262D120h (-205803D23840Bh(100169randomeurosignsstarthere and blurt onto the next line)
1 Other (0000:0702) 1474643h(20945.541034702h(1065169.75K)
Total compress code space = yadda yadda (1001825.00K)
Total compressed code size = yadda yadda (2066866.75K)
Remain compressed code space = yadda yadda (-1065041.75K)
A negative figure for remaining space? That can't be good.
Now the part which I'm pissed about is that
1 Mainboards don't come with Highpoint controllers anymore, otherwise I wouldn't have gone through this ordeal
2 Controllers are either expensive (although worth it), or cheap and require 'expert' knowledge. Read this as : If *I* can't fix it, how can you expect a lament to do it ?
So my question is simple : How do I convince this system to recognise my raid controller so that I can finally enjoy this new system ?
0
Comments
Without the BIOS or pre-Windows procedure being able to see / access the drives, it is impossible to boot from the drives. Do note that these drives come from an existing HPT370 array and were this a HPT372 (Rocket 133) card, it probably would've booted fine without any problem. However, this is a HPT371 (Rocket 133S), not a HPT372. The problem here isn't a Windows issue, Windows has nothing to do with it, nor Linux, nor FreeBSD.
How can you configure a raid array if you don't even have a menu for it ? (rhetorical)
But to answer to your post literally : The card is in the PCI slot, the harddisks are hooked on and powered, but Windows isn't accessible because the card isn't recognised by the BIOS (apart from the "Mass Storage Device" line just before normal floppy/IDE/S-ATA drives are being searched). The only harddisks in this system are the harddisks on the raid array.
As for configuration, there could be a windows program for it. There are some BIOSes now that can be reflashed and reconfigured while the OS is running, so I don't see why they couldn't do it on an expansion card. My suggestion in this case would be to assume you won't be able to make it boot, and borrow a tiny hard drive from someone to install an OS on. Then try to get the RAID array up and running.
Edit - in your BIOS setup, wherever you configure startup devices, see if you can find an option to boot from "Bootable Addin Card" or something that sounds like that. I've got a cheap Tyan server board which comes with that option, and I haven't looked at the BIOSes in my other PCs - but it might be there.
Anyway, I have a Promise FastTrak 100 raid controller as well, and that card latches onto the BIOS bit just fine.... It's just this specific card that has this 'problem'.
I've tried 2 monitors and 3 videocards (pci 4mb, agp 32 mb, agp 64 mb) with different cables for my new problem, but not a single sign of life - could this be the result of bad flashing ?
Hi Folks
Erikochan might derive some comfort from my experiences. I also bought an HighPoint Rocket133S (371) PCI-card from Alternate.nl and met similar problems.
My motherboard (very nice: 400MHz processor, 1 AGP, 2 ISA, 4 PCI slots, manufacturer untraceable) has an Award 4.51PG BIOS.
I tried to combine the two bios's under clean Caldera DrDOS with:
cbrom130.exe mi415.bin /pci bios371.122
The program indicated 56% and stopped (apparantly finished because the dos-prompt reappeared) after a while
cbrom130.exe mi415.bin /D
produced next file:
"""""""""""
CBROM V1.30 (C)Award Software 1999 All Rights Reserved.
******** mi415.bin BIOS component ********
No. Item-Name Original-Size Compressed-Size Original-File-Name
================================================================================ 0. System BIOS 20000h(128.00K)14B02h(82.75K)original.tmp
1. XGROUP CODE 05F3Eh(23.81K)04186h(16.38K)awardext.rom
2. CPU micro code 08000h(32.00K)04DCAh(19.45K)CPUCODE.BIN
3. ACPI table 021D4h(8.46K)00E9Dh(3.65K)ACPITBL.BIN
4. EPA pattern 0168Ch(5.64K)0030Dh(0.76K)AwardBmp.bmp
5. VRS ROM 02274h(8.61K)014AAh(5.17K)ANTI_VIR.BIN
6. PCI ROM[A] 06000h(24.00K)035F5h(13.49K)bios371.122
Total compress code space = 34B02h(210.75K)
Total compressed code size = 2369Bh(141.65K)
Remain compress code space = 11467h(69.10K)
** Micro Code Information **
Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID | Update ID CPUID
+
+
+
PPGA 11 0681| PPGA 03 0665| SLOT1 13 0630| SLOT1 20 0632
SLOT1 34 0633| SLOT1 35 0634| SLOT1 40 0651| SLOT1 2A 0652
SLOT1 10 0653| SLOT1 0A 0660| SLOT1 06 0670| SLOT1 03 0671
SLOT1 10 0672| SLOT1 0E 0673| SLOT1 14 0680| SLOT1 0D 0681
SLOT1 13 0630|
""""""""""""""""""""
This does'nt reveal any secrets for me, I just can't get any point from it.
Anyway: flashing the ?new? mi415.bin did'nt make any difference. My CDROM still is not recognized.
I did not use the same combine-program and bios-files as Erikochan did, because I've reasons to believe that mine (downloaded from the internet) are more recent or appropriate.
I also tried the Rocket133 (HPT302 UMDA/ATA133) controller. This one could be installed fine. The ctrl-H option also worked but again no recognition of my CDROM. Promise controller cards do not work either.
Perhaps it's needless to say that the various CDROM's and hard disks I could not see wth the controller cards, are easily recognized bij the motherboard IDE controllers.
I hope there will be anybody among you, helpfull readers, who might give me a valuable tip to solve this annoying problem.
Corrrect
ome.chiel