You should back up all data before installing any drive controller or storage peripheral. Promise Technology is not responsible for any loss of data resulting from the use, disuse or misuse of this or any other Promise Technology product. Notice...
Contents Chapter 1: Introduction... 1 FastTrak S150 TX2plus ... 1 Promise Array Management Utility (PAM)... 2 Key Features and Benefits ... 3 Chapter 2: Installation ... 5 Unpacking Your FastTrak Card... 5 Installing the FastTrak Card ... 6 Installing the Hard Drives ... 7 Creating Your Disk Array...
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Existing Windows ME Installation... 45 Confirming Windows ME Driver Installation ... 45 New Windows NT4.0 Installation... 46 Existing Windows NT4.0 Installation ... 47 Removing Driver from Windows NT4.0 ... 47 New Windows 98 Installation ... 48 Existing Windows 98 Installation ... 49 Confirming Windows 98 Driver Installation...
Chapter 1: Introduction Thank you for purchasing Promise Technology’s FastTrak S150 TX2plus RAID controller card. The PC which you are using either already contains FastTrak S150 TX2plus installed by a third-party or you have acquired a FastTrak S150 TX2plus retail product for your existing PC and plan to install the card yourself.
FastTrak S150 TX2plus bootable BIOS supports individual drives larger than 137 GB. With FAT32 and NTFS partitioning, the array can be addressed as one large single volume. With some models of hard drives, if the Master hard drive fails, it may cause the Slave hard drive to be unrecognized by the computer's operating system.
Key Features and Benefits The following information offers an overview of the major features of your new Promise FastTrak S150 TX2 plus. Features Supports 66MHz PCI bus motherboards (automatically backward compatible with 33MHz PCI slots) Supports: data striping (RAID 0), mirroring (RAID 1), and striping/mirroring (RAID 0+1).
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Utilizes FastBuild™ automenu from the FastTrak S150 TX2plus onboard BIOS Displays status and error checking messages during bootup Employs the latest Promise PCI Serial ATA ASIC technology Mirroring supports automatic background rebuilds Features Complies with PCI v2.3 Local Bus standard Complies with SATA Specification 1.0 Compliant with PCI Bus...
Chapter 2: Installation This section is designed to quickly get your FastTrak S150 TX2plus Serial ATA RAID controller card up and running using the default settings, which will be optimal for most users. If you wish to modify any of the default settings, please refer to Chapter 3, page 15, Using FastBuild™...
Installing the FastTrak Card The FastTrak TX2plus Serial ATA RAID card fits into any available PCI slot on your PC’s motherboard (see Figure 1, below): • 32-bit PCI slot (must be PCI 2.2 or 2.3 compliant) • The 32-bit portion of a 64-bit PCI slot Remove the cover of your system.
Installing the Hard Drives If you wish to include your current bootable Serial ATA drive using the Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, or Windows XP operating system as part of a bootable Mirrored (RAID 1) array on your FastTrak Serial ATA RAID card, do NOT connect the hard drive to the FastTrak yet.
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for future FastTrak Figure 2. FastTrak S150 TX2plus card Attach the Y-cable power splitters to the Serial ATA hard drives. Use existing power cables for the Parallel ATA hard drives. The FastTrak S150 TX2plus RAID controller is a PCI Plug-n-Play (PnP) device.
S150 TX2plus card and drives installed, the Promise onboard BIOS will display the following screen. FastTrak S150 TXx (tm) BIOS Version 1.aa (Build xxxx) (c) 2002-2005 Promise Technology, Inc. All Rights Reserved No array defined . . . Press <Ctrl-F> to ender FastBuild (tm) Utility Or press <ESC>...
FastBuild (tm) Utility 2.xx (c) 2002-2005 Promise Technology, Inc. Optimize Array for: Mode ... Stripe Spare Drive ... 0 Drives used in Array ... 2 Array Disk Capacity... 160048 [↑] Up [↓] Down [←, →, Space] Change Option [ESC] Exit [Ctrl-Y] Save Creating a Performance Array Use this setting to create a Striped (RAID 0) array.
Creating a Security Array with New Drives With some models of hard drives, if the Master hard drive fails, it may cause the Slave hard drive to be unrecognized by the computer's operating system. Where a RAID 1 (Mirroring) array exists on the Master/Slave pair, this condition may cause the operating system to freeze.
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A window will appear almost immediately confirming that your Security array has been created. Press any key to reboot the system. Array has been created. <Press Any Key to Reboot> Proceed with normal FDISK and format procedures as if you had just installed a new hard drive.
Creating a Security Array with an Existing Data Drive With some models of hard drives, if the Master hard drive fails, it may cause the Slave hard drive to be unrecognized by the computer's operating system. Where a RAID 1 (Mirroring) array exists on the Master/Slave pair, this condition may cause the operating system to freeze.
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Do you want the disk image to be duplicated to another or do quick initialize or create only? Y - Create and Duplicate N - Create Only I - Create and Quick Initialize Press Y for the Create and Duplicate option. The window below will appear asking you to select the Source drive to use.
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Chapter 2: Installation Array has been created. <Press Any Key to Reboot> Once the arrayed drives have been formatted, proceed to Chapter 4 of this Manual to install your operating system and/or FastTrak driver.
Creating a Security Array with Quick Initialization With some models of hard drives, if the Master hard drive fails, it may cause the Slave hard drive to be unrecognized by the computer's operating system. Where a RAID 1 (Mirroring) array exists on the Master/Slave pair, this condition may cause the operating system to freeze.
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The window below will appear. Do you want the disk image to be duplicated to another or do quick initialize or create only? Y - Create and Duplicate N - Create Only I - Create and Quick Initialize Press I for the Create and Quick Initialize A window will appear almost immediately confirming that your Security array has been created.
FastTrak S150 TXx (tm) BIOS Version 1.xx (Build xxxx) (c) 2002-2005 Promise Technology, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Scanning IDE drives ..If an array exists already, the BIOS will display the following screen showing the card’s BIOS version and status of the array.
Esc aborts or exits the current menu. Using the Main Menu This is the first option screen when entering the FastBuild Setup. FastBuild (tm) Utility 2.xx (c) 2002-2005 Promise Technology, Inc. Auto Setup... [ 1 ] View Drive Assignments ... [ 2 ] Define Array...
It will assign all available drives appropriate for the disk array you are creating. After making all selections, press Ctrl-Y to Save the selections. FastBuild will automatically build the array. FastBuild (tm) Utility 2.xx (c) 2002-2005 Promise Technology, Inc. Optimize Array for: Mode... Stripe Spare Drive Count ...
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FastTrak S150 TX2plus permits striped arrays using 1, 2, 3, or 4 drives attached in Auto Setup mode. Under the Security setting, FastTrak S150 TX2plus permits two drives to be used for a single Mirrored array or four drives to be used for a Mirrored/Striped array in Auto Setup. Security (RAID 1 Mirroring, or RAID 0+1 Striping/ Mirroring) creates a mirrored (or fault tolerant) array for data security.
Using a Hot Spare Drive With some models of hard drives, if the Master hard drive fails, it may cause the Slave hard drive to be unrecognized by the computer's operating system. Where a RAID 1 (Mirroring) array exists on the Master/Slave pair, this condition may cause the operating system to freeze.
Unassigned drives are not accessible by the OS. The menu also displays the data transfer mode that relates to speed used by each drive (U5 refers to 100MB/sec transfers, U4 refers to 66MB/sec transfers, etc...) FastBuild (tm) Utility 2.xx (c) 2002-2005 Promise Technology, Inc. Channel:ID Drive Model...
RAID 1 mirroring. For most installations, Promise recommends the (1) Auto Setup for easy disk array creation. FastBuild (tm) Utility 2.xx (c) 2002-2005 Promise Technology, Inc. Array No RAID Mode...
Gigabyte Boundary The Gigabyte Boundary feature is designed for mirrored arrays (RAID 1 or RAID 0+1) in which a drive has failed and the user cannot replace the drive with the same capacity or larger. Instead, the Gigabyte Boundary feature permits the installation of a replacement drive that is slightly smaller (within 1 gigabyte) than the remaining working drive (for example, an 80.5 GB drive would be rounded down to 80 GB).
Assigning Drive(s) to Array Under the Drive Assignments section, highlight a drive by pressing the keys. Press the Spacebar to change the Assignable option to Y to add the drive to the disk array. Press Ctrl-Y to save the disk array information. Depending on the array type selected, the following scenarios will take place: •...
Creating a Mirrored Array Using New Drives With some models of hard drives, if the Master hard drive fails, it may cause the Slave hard drive to be unrecognized by the computer's operating system. Where a RAID 1 (Mirroring) array exists on the Master/Slave pair, this condition may cause the operating system to freeze.
Adding Fault Tolerance to an Existing Drive With some models of hard drives, if the Master hard drive fails, it may cause the Slave hard drive to be unrecognized by the computer's operating system. Where a RAID 1 (Mirroring) array exists on the Master/Slave pair, this condition may cause the operating system to freeze.
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Press Ctrl-Y to Save your selection. The window below will appear. Do you want the disk image to be duplicated to another or do quick initialize or create only? Y - Create and Duplicate N - Create Only I - Create and Quick Initiate Gigabyte Boundary is automatically disabled when creating a mirrored array (RAID 1) from an existing drive (versus using two brand new drives).
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Press Ctrl-Y to Save selection and start duplication. The following confirmation screen will appear. Start to duplicate the image . . . Do you want to continue? (Yes/No) Y – Continue N – Abort Select Y to continue. If you choose N, you will be returned to step 1. Once you select Y, the following progress screen will appear.
Creating a Hot Spare Drive for Mirrored Arrays With some models of hard drives, if the Master hard drive fails, it may cause the Slave hard drive to be unrecognized by the computer's operating system. Where a RAID 1 (Mirroring) array exists on the Master/Slave pair, this condition may cause the operating system to freeze.
Make sure to record all array information including the array type, the disk members, and stripe block size in case you wish to undo a deletion. FastBuild (tm) Utility 2.xx (c) 2002-2005 Promise Technology, Inc. Array No RAID Mode Array 1...
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FastBuild (tm) Utility 2.xx (c) 2002-2005 Promise Technology, Inc. Array No RAID Mode Array 1 Stripe Stripe Block: 64 KB Channel:ID Drive Model SEAGATE S380023AS SEAGATE S380023AS Press Ctrl-Y to confirm Yes to the following warning message and continue array...
Replace the drive with an identical model. Reboot the system and enter the FastBuild Main Menu. Select the Rebuild Array (5) option. The following screen will appear. FastBuild (tm) Utility 2.xx (c) 2002-2005 Promise Technology, Inc. Array No RAID Mode...
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FastBuild (tm) Utility 2.xx (c) 2002-2005 Promise Technology, Inc. Array No RAID Mode Array 2 Mirror Stripe Block: Not Available Channel:ID [ ] Up [ ] Down [ESC] Exit 11. Under Select Drive for Rebuild, highlight the replacement drive. 12. Press Enter and confirm that the data will be copied on to the selected drive.
Chapter 4: Installing Software Drivers Following are driver installation procedures for the Windows operating systems that support the FastTrak S150 TX2plus Controller. The FastTrak TX2plus software drivers for Windows are included on the driver diskette. Drivers and installation instructions for other Operating Systems are downloadable from the Promise website at www.promise.com.
Windows XP Installation The following details the installation of the FastTrak TX2plus drivers while installing Windows XP. Start the installation: • Floppy Install: Boot the computer with the Windows XP installation diskettes. • CD-ROM Install: Boot from the CD-ROM. Press F6 after the message “Press F6 if you need to install third party SCSI or RAID driver”...
Existing Windows XP Installation After installing the FastTrak S150 TX2plus card and rebooting your system, Windows XP setup will show a “Found New Hardware” dialog box. Under Windows XP, “Mass Storage Controller” will be displayed. Insert the FastTrak TX2plus driver diskette into the A:\ drive. Choose Install the software automatically and press the Enter key.
New Windows 2000 Installation The following details the installation of the FastTrak TX2plus drivers while installing Windows 2000. Start the installation: • Floppy Install: Boot the computer with the Windows 2000 installation diskettes. • CD-ROM Install: Boot from the CD-ROM. Press F6 after the message “Press F6 if you need to install third party SCSI or RAID driver”...
Existing Windows 2000 Installation After installing the FastTrak S150 TX2plus card and rebooting your system, Windows 2000 setup will show a “New Hardware Found” dialog box. Under Windows 2000, “PCI Mass Storage Controller” will be displayed. Choose Add New Hardware Wizard from the list, and then press Enter. Choose Add/Troubleshoot a device and click Next.
New Windows ME Installation The following details the installation of the FastTrak TX2plus drivers while installing Windows ME. Install the FastTrak TX2plus controller card into your system. Install Windows ME fully. After installation, go to the Start menu and choose Settings. From the Settings menu, choose Control Panel.
Existing Windows ME Installation The following section details the installation of FastTrak TX2plus drivers on a system that has Windows ME already installed and running. After installing the FastTrak S150 TX2plus controller card and configuring the hard drives, power up the system and boot. The Add New Hardware Wizard will appear, informing you that it has found a PCI Mass Storage Controller.
New Windows NT4.0 Installation The following details the installation of the FastTrak TX2plus drivers while installing Windows NT4.0. Start the system installation by booting from the Windows NT disk: • Floppy install: boot the system with the Windows NT installation diskettes.
Existing Windows NT4.0 Installation The following section details the installation of FastTrak TX2plus drivers on a system that has Windows NT4.0 already installed and running. NOTE: Do not attach the boot drive or any other hard drive to the FastTrak TX2plus controller card before completing this step.
New Windows 98 Installation The following section details the installation of the FastTrak TX2plus drivers while installing Windows 98. Install the FastTrak S150 TX2plus controller card and configure the hard drive(s), partition and format your hard drive(s), if necessary. Install Windows 98 normally. After installation, go the Start menu and choose Settings.
Existing Windows 98 Installation The following section details the installation of FastTrak TX2plus drivers on a system that has Windows 98 already installed and running. After installing the FastTrak S150 TX2plus controller card and configuring the hard drives, power up the system and boot Windows. The “Add New Hardware Wizard”...
Chapter 5: Disk Array Concepts About FastTrak S150 TX2plus FastTrak S150 TX2plus is a high performance Serial ATA/Ultra ATA RAID controller card that features concurrent data channel operation and onboard BIOS. The channels on the FastTrak S150 TX2plus support concurrent operation that allows for overlapped I/O under multi-tasking operating systems and sharing the workload between multiple drives.
Disk Array Terms Disk Array Description A disk array is formed from a group of two or more disk drives that appear to the system as a single drive. The advantage of an array is to provide better throughput performance and/or data fault tolerance. Better performance is accomplished by sharing the workload among multiple physical drives.
About RAID Levels Striping (RAID 0) Reads and writes sectors of data interleaved between multiple drives. When any disk member fails, it affects the entire array. Performance is better than a single drive since the workload is balanced between the array members. This array type is for high performance systems.
Mirroring (RAID 1) Writes duplicate data on to a pair of drives while reads are performed in parallel. ATA RAID 1 is fault tolerant because each drive of a mirrored pair is installed on separate IDE channels. If one of the mirrored drives suffers a mechanical failure (for example, spindle failure) or does not respond, the remaining drive will continue to function.
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With some models of hard drives, if the Master hard drive fails, it may cause the Slave hard drive to be unrecognized by the computer's operating system. Where a RAID 1 (Mirroring) array exists on the Master/Slave pair, this condition may cause the operating system to freeze.
Striping / Mirroring (RAID 0+1) A combination of RAID 0 and RAID 1 arrays. It can increase performance by reading and writing data in parallel while protecting data with duplication. A minimum of four drives are required. With a four-drive disk array, two pairs of drives are striped. Each pair mirrors the data on the other pair of striped drives.
Chapter 6: Troubleshooting & Tips This section is used to assist with troubleshooting conflicts and FastTrak S150 TX2plus installation problems. Also refer to the README.TXT file on the FastTrak S150 TX2plus driver and utility diskette for more recent information as well as the PromiseOnline services listed in Appendix B.
FastTrak S150 TX2plus User Manual System CMOS Issues Set Motherboard CMOS Boot sequence to boot to FastTrak S150 TX2plus On some Motherboard BIOS, it is necessary to set the Boot sequence to SCSI, A:, C: since the Promise card is identified as a SCSI card. Motherboard CMOS displays C: or D: drive failure during startup See the Drive-Related Errors section.
Drive-Related Errors Critical Array Status Error Reported during Boot If a critical status error message appears on the FastTrak S150 TX2plus BIOS startup screen for a mirrored array (see below), there is a drive in the array that has failed or is not responding. FastTrak S150 TX2plus will identify the failed drive by channel number.
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Unable to Partition or Format Array This condition may occur when the Reserve Sector of one of the drives has become corrupt or bad. Removing the Reserve Sector will remedy any issue related directly to a Bad Reserve Sector. Before removing the Reserve Sector of the drive(s), backup any existing data.
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Chapter 6: Troubleshooting & Tips Array Constantly Goes Into Critical or Offline Mode During Reboot See Unable to Partition or Format array, above. Cannot Rebuild Mirrored (RAID 1) Array See Unable to Partition or Format array, above. Fatal Errors or Data Corruption Are Constantly Reported When Reading or Writing to Drive Array See Unable to Partition or Format array, above.
FastTrak S150 TX2plus User Manual Operating System-Related Issues Different drive lettering under Windows NT This may happen when using a SCSI card in addition to the Promise card. Windows NT does not necessarily load the driver for the boot device controller first.
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Chapter 6: Troubleshooting & Tips “No Hard Drives Found” Message Appears During CD-ROM Install of Windows NT, 2000, or XP The F6 key was not pressed at the appropriate time. Reboot the system, and press the F6 key when the message “Setup is inspecting your computer’s hardware configuration…”...
A/V editing. You may select an even larger block size in manual mode (see Chapter 3). FastTrak (tm) / FastTrak S150 TX2plus (tm) BIOS Version 1.xx (Build xxxx) (c) 2002-2005 Promise Technology, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Optimize Array for: Mode... Stripe Stripe Block Size...64...
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Change Setting of PCI Bus Utilization Certain brands of video capture cards can produce a glitch on play back of .AVI files. A setting of Less for PCI Bus utilization reduces the time which FastTrak S150 TX2plus occupies on the PCI bus and frees that time for use by other PCI devices and will eliminate the glitch dropout effect on playback.
Appendix A: Frequently Asked Questions This section lists frequently asked questions involving pre-installation, drive issues, installation, and post-installation. Pre-Installation (Speed, Device Types, Capacity, Cabling) Q: What kind of hard drives can I use for a FastTrak S150 TX2plus array? You can use any Serial ATA or any IDE/EIDE hard drive(s) to create arrays on the FastTrak S150 TX2plus.
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FastTrak S150 TX2plus User Manual Q: How does the FastTrak S150 TX2plus RAID controller provide storage and/or data protection with their arrays? FastTrak S150 TX2plus implements three different types of RAID levels as follows: RAID 0 (Stripe) For capacity – The FastTrak S150 TX2plus array will be as big as the smallest HDD in the array times however many HDDs are in the array.
Drive Issues Q: Can I add a drive to a FastTrak S150 TX2plus RAID array via hot-swap and dynamically adjust the array size/configuration? No. The FastTrak S150 TX2plus system does not support dynamically adjustable RAID size/configurations. Q: Do the HDDs on the FastTrak S150 TX2plus have to be the same size? The HDDs that you use with the FastTrak S150 TX2plus do not have to be the same size.
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Q: What system BIOS setup settings do I use for the drives on the FastTrak S150 TX2plus controller? None. The drives on the FastTrak S150 TX2plus controller are supported by the FastTrak S150 TX2plus BIOS and/or OS drivers, not by your system BIOS. Q: How do I partition/format my FastTrak S150 TX2plus RAID array? The FastTrak S150 TX2plus represents the array as a single HDD to your system.
Installation Issues (Capacity, Booting) Q: Why are some drives recognized by the FastTrak S150 TX2plus Array Setup utilities with only partial capacity? Some hard drives ship with a jumper that reduces the addressable capacity of the drive to prevent problems with older systems that don’t support larger drives.
7:30-5:00pm M-F Pacific Standard Time Promise Technology, Inc. Attn: Technical Support 1745 McCandless Drive Milpitas, CA 95035, USA support@promise.nl +31 (0)40-256-9463 Attention: Technical Support +31 (0)40-235-2600 8:30-5:00pm The Netherlands Time Promise Technology Europe B.V. Attn: Technical Support Luchthavenweg 81-125 5657 EA Eindhoven, The Netherlands...
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If you wish to write us for support: support@promise.com.tw +886-3-578-2390 Attention: Technical Support +886-3-578-2395 (Ext. 8870) 9:00-6:00pm Taiwan Time Promise Technology, Inc. Attn: Technical Support 2F, No. 30, Industry E. Rd. IX Science-based Industrial Park Hsinchu, Taiwan, R.O.C. support-china@promise.com +86 (0) 10-687-23940...
Limited Warranty Promise Technology, Inc. (“Promise”) warrants that for Three (3) years from the time of the delivery of the product to the original end user: the product will conform to Promise’s specifications; the product will be free from defects in material and workmanship under normal use and service.
No other document, statement or representation may be relied on to vary the terms of this limited warranty. Promise’s sole responsibility with respect to any product is to do one of the following at its own discretion: replace the product with a conforming unit of the same or superior product;...
Promise will pay for standard return shipping charges only. You will be required to pay for any additional shipping options (such as express shipping). Appendix B: Technical Support Promise Technology, Inc. Customer Service Dept. Attn.: RMA # ______ 1745 McCandless Drive...
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