2K3+Asus A7V133+setup cannot copy fasttrak.sys
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Thread: 2K3+Asus A7V133+setup cannot copy fasttrak.sys

  1. #1
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    2K3+Asus A7V133+setup cannot copy fasttrak.sys

    My problem is identical to this thread:
    http://forums.windrivers.com/showthread.php?t=50345

    I am going to fill in all the details the above thread is lacking to provide the specific information that is needed to obtain a solution.

    I am convinced the solution to this problem is a very simple path problem that is eluding me. This post is lengthy but all on topic with the problem.

    This box has been running w2k fine on the same raid array. As a matter of fact the raid 0 array has 3 ntfs partitions two of which still have data on them. I am simply upgrading w2k to 2003 on the primary active partition.

    If I put my w2k cd in I can use 'f6' and install w2k without error.

    All bios settings, cabling, and drive configurations are updated and correct. If there is a problem its then it's some obscure solution where I need to reinstall an older bios.

    WHAT HAPPENS:
    1) Boot from 2003 CD
    2) Press 'F6'
    3) Prompted to insert floppy and select driver
    4) Driver loads and I can see raid array, partition, and format without error
    5) Setup starts to copy initial setup files to hard drive but it first tries to copy raid drivers. This is where install fails.
    "setup cannot copy fasttrak.sys"

    WHAT I HAVE TRIED:
    1) press escape to let the copy fail - the rest of the 2003 setup files copy fine and then i get a blue screen of death on restart
    2) tried to to boot command prompt, safe mode, debug, and every other alternative option on restart to manually copy and get BSOD
    3) thought about using ultimate boot cd to manually copy files but I do not know where to put them
    4) reformatted primary partition with partition magic to fat just to make sure it wasn't a file system copy problem
    5) remake driver disks on different floppies
    6) analyzed txtsetup.oem
    ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Original TXTSETUP.OEM
    [Disks]
    d1 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \
    d2 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \nt4
    d3 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \Win2000
    d4 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \WinXP

    [Defaults]
    scsi = Fasttrak100_xp

    [scsi]
    FastTrak100_xp = "WinXP Promise FastTrak100 (tm) Lite Controller", FastTrak
    FastTrak100_nt5 = "Win2000 Promise FastTrak100 (tm) Lite Controller", FastTrak
    FastTrak100_nt4 = "WinNT Promise FastTrak100 (tm) Lite Controller", FastTrak

    [Files.scsi.Fasttrak100_xp]
    driver = d4, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d4, Fasttrak.inf

    [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak100_xp]
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_80421043","Fasttrak" ;
    (***there are several similar lines here omitted for length of post reasons***)

    [Files.scsi.Fasttrak100_nt5]
    driver = d3, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d3, Fasttrak.inf

    [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak100_nt5]
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_80421043","Fasttrak" ;
    (***same goes here***)

    [Files.scsi.Fasttrak100_nt4]
    driver = d2, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d2, Fasttrak.inf

    [Config.Fasttrak]
    value = "", Tag, REG_DWORD, 1
    ---------------------------------------------------------------
    6) I put all files in root folder and deleted all other driver versions. My driver floppy contains the following files (case matching):
    A:\TXTSETUP.OEM
    A:\FASTTRAK #i believe this is the tag file, if opened with notepad only contains "fasttrak"
    A:\FASTTRAK.SYS
    A:\FASTTRAK.CAT
    A:\FASTTRAK.INF


    This is my modified TXTSETUP.OEM, changes commented w/# and I renamed all filenames on floppy to lowercase
    -------------------------------------------------------------
    [Disks]
    d1 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \ #removed WinXP subfolder and other disks

    [Defaults]
    scsi = fasttrak100_xp #all lower case since case did not match in original file

    [scsi]
    fasttrak100_xp = "WinXP Promise FastTrak100 (tm) Lite Controller", fastTrak #lower case

    [Files.scsi.fasttrak100_xp]
    driver = d4, fasttrak.sys, fasttrak #lower case
    inf = d4, fasttrak.inf #lower case

    [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak100_xp]
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_80421043","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0011458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0021458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0031458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0041458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0051458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0061458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0071458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0081458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0091458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00A1458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00B1458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00C1458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00D1458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00E1458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00F1458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_0065A0A0","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_30011695","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_321D1462","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_330D1462","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_337D1462","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_366D1462","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_369D1462","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_380D1462","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_394D1462","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_90011509","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_070110FD","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_086616F3","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_4D33105A","Fasttrak" ;

    [Config.fasttrak] # lower case
    value = "", Tag, REG_DWORD, 1

    At one point I renamed FASTTRAK to FASTTRAK.TAG thinking the file might be confused as a directory with no extension
    ---------------------------------------------------------------
    d1 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak.tag, \
    -------------------------------------------------------------
    I am not sure is this line is also a reference to the tag file but i tried to rename it also
    --------------------------------------------------------------
    driver = d4, fasttrak.sys, fasttrak.tag
    ------------------------------------------------------------

    OBSERVATIONS

    W2K works and I have heard reports of the 'F6' method working on pre sp1 2003 and 64 bit 2003 so I know it's "possible".

    Slipstream seems to be a possibility but there are several threads about raid slipstream problems and if it comes to that I can install on a regular ide and image it over to raid 0 quicker than slipstream. I have a floppy in box and 'f6' is easiest method.

    2003 setup does access the floppy before it reports 'cannot copy fasttrak.sys' which I believe means it's unable to find the file. Where is it looking? It just read the dang floppy 5 minutes earlier to load the driver.

    The driver does work because if I do not use 'f6' setup will fail because it can not see any hard drives or the array. With 'f6' setup does see the array and allows partitioning and formatting (or to leave intact and select a partition)

    A path problem makes the most sense and would be a very simple solution if I knew where setup is looking for fasttrak.sys.

  2. #2
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    Please note that there are typo's in my original post concerning [disks] in my real txtsetup.oem d1 is consistent but in my post i only pasted the original file and edited it to match some of what I have tried for the rest. That is why you see d1 & d4 mismatched

  3. #3
    Driver Terrier NooNoo's Avatar
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    It occurred to me that you are not using a 2k3 driver a quick look at promise downloads shows the fastrak 100 with a 2k3 update.
    Never, ever approach a computer saying or even thinking "I will just do this quickly."

  4. #4
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    Very astute observation and something I should have included in my original post but could not recall the specific error. However for sake of completeness I recreated a driver cd with the exact drivers you are referring to and setup fails at 'f6', Press 'S' to specify an additional device. I can select the Fasttrack 2003 driver but it fails when it tries to read the driver:

    File\Winnet\Fasttrak.sys could not be loaded

    The error code is 4096

    Same error message if I try to use the Windows XP driver on that disk.

    Here is the txtsetup.oem file on the updated Promise Driver
    -------------------------------------------------------------
    [Disks]
    d1 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \
    d2 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \nt4
    d3 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \Win2000
    d4 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \WinXP
    d5 = "Promise FastTrak Family Driver Diskette", \fasttrak, \WinNet

    [Defaults]
    scsi = FastTrak_TX2_net

    [scsi]
    FastTrak_TX2000_net = "Win.Net Server 2003 Promise FastTrak TX2000 (tm) Controller", FastTrak
    FastTrak_TX2_net = "Win.Net Server 2003 Promise FastTrak100 TX2/TX4 (tm) Controller", FastTrak
    Fasttrak100_net = "Win.Net Server 2003 Promise FastTrak100 (tm) Controller", FastTrak
    Fasttrak66_net = "Win.Net Server 2003 Promise FastTrak66 (tm) Controller (PDC20262)", FastTrak
    ;Fasttrak_net = "WinXP Promise FastTrak (tm) Controller", FastTrak
    FastTrak_TX2000_xp = "WinXP Promise FastTrak TX2000 (tm) Controller", FastTrak
    FastTrak_TX2_xp = "WinXP Promise FastTrak100 TX2/TX4 (tm) Controller", FastTrak
    Fasttrak100_xp = "WinXP Promise FastTrak100 (tm) Controller", FastTrak
    Fasttrak66_xp = "WinXP Promise FastTrak66 (tm) Controller (PDC20262)", FastTrak
    ;Fasttrak_xp = "WinXP Promise FastTrak (tm) Controller", FastTrak
    FastTrak_TX2000_nt5 = "Win2000 Promise FastTrak TX2000 (tm) Controller", FastTrak
    FastTrak_TX2_nt5 = "Win2000 Promise FastTrak100 TX2/TX4 (tm) Controller", FastTrak
    Fasttrak100_nt5 = "Win2000 Promise FastTrak100 (tm) Controller", FastTrak
    Fasttrak66_nt5 = "Win2000 Promise FastTrak66 (tm) Controller (PDC20262)", FastTrak
    ;Fasttrak_nt5 = "Win2000 Promise FastTrak (tm) Controller", FastTrak
    FastTrak_TX2000_nt4 = "WinNT Promise FastTrak TX2000 (tm) Controller", FastTrak
    FastTrak_TX2_nt4 = "WinNT Promise FastTrak100 TX2/TX4 (tm) Controller", FastTrak
    Fasttrak100_nt4 = "WinNT Promise FastTrak100 (tm) Controller", FastTrak
    Fasttrak66_nt4 = "WinNT Promise FastTrak66 (tm) Controller (PDC20262)", FastTrak
    ;Fasttrak_nt4 = "WinNT Promise FastTrak (tm) Controller", FastTrak

    [Files.scsi.FastTrak_TX2000_net]
    driver = d5, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d5, Fasttrak.inf

    [HardwareIds.scsi.FastTrak_TX2000_net]
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_6269", "Fasttrak"

    [Files.scsi.FastTrak_TX2_net]
    driver = d5, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d5, Fasttrak.inf

    [HardwareIds.scsi.FastTrak_TX2_net]
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_6268", "Fasttrak"

    [Files.scsi.Fasttrak100_net]
    driver = d5, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d5, Fasttrak.inf

    [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak100_net]
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_4D30&SUBSYS_4D39105A", "Fasttrak"
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_4D30&SUBSYS_4D32105A", "Fasttrak"

    [Files.scsi.Fasttrak66_net]
    driver = d5, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d5, Fasttrak.inf

    [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak66_net]
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_4D38&SUBSYS_4D39105A", "Fasttrak"

    [Files.scsi.Fasttrak_net]
    driver = d5, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d5, Fasttrak.inf

    [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak_net]
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_4D33&SUBSYS_4D33105A", "Fasttrak"

    [Files.scsi.FastTrak_TX2000_xp]
    driver = d4, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d4, Fasttrak.inf
    catalog= d4, Fasttrak.cat

    [HardwareIds.scsi.FastTrak_TX2000_xp]
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_6269", "Fasttrak"

    [Files.scsi.FastTrak_TX2_xp]
    driver = d4, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d4, Fasttrak.inf
    catalog= d4, Fasttrak.cat

    [HardwareIds.scsi.FastTrak_TX2_xp]
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_6268", "Fasttrak"

    [Files.scsi.Fasttrak100_xp]
    driver = d4, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d4, Fasttrak.inf
    catalog= d4, Fasttrak.cat

    [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak100_xp]
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_4D30&SUBSYS_4D39105A", "Fasttrak"
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_4D30&SUBSYS_4D32105A", "Fasttrak"

    [Files.scsi.Fasttrak66_xp]
    driver = d4, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d4, Fasttrak.inf
    catalog= d4, Fasttrak.cat

    [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak66_xp]
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_4D38&SUBSYS_4D39105A", "Fasttrak"

    [Files.scsi.Fasttrak_xp]
    driver = d4, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d4, Fasttrak.inf
    catalog= d4, Fasttrak.cat

    [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak_xp]
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_4D33&SUBSYS_4D33105A", "Fasttrak"

    [Files.scsi.FastTrak_TX2000_nt5]
    driver = d3, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d3, Fasttrak.inf
    catalog= d3, Fasttrak.cat

    [HardwareIds.scsi.FastTrak_TX2000_nt5]
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_6269", "Fasttrak"

    [Files.scsi.FastTrak_TX2_nt5]
    driver = d3, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d3, Fasttrak.inf
    catalog= d3, Fasttrak.cat

    [HardwareIds.scsi.FastTrak_TX2_nt5]
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_6268", "Fasttrak"

    [Files.scsi.Fasttrak100_nt5]
    driver = d3, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d3, Fasttrak.inf
    catalog= d3, Fasttrak.cat

    [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak100_nt5]
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_4D30&SUBSYS_4D39105A", "Fasttrak"
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_4D30&SUBSYS_4D32105A", "Fasttrak"

    [Files.scsi.Fasttrak_nt5]
    driver = d3, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d3, Fasttrak.inf
    catalog= d3, Fasttrak.cat

    [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak_nt5]
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_4D33&SUBSYS_4D33105A", "Fasttrak"

    [Files.scsi.Fasttrak66_nt5]
    driver = d3, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d3, Fasttrak.inf
    ;catalog= d3, Fasttrak.cat

    [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak66_nt5]
    id="PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_4D38&SUBSYS_4D39105A", "Fasttrak"

    [Files.scsi.Fasttrak_nt4]
    driver = d2, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d2, Fasttrak.inf
    ;catalog= d2, Fasttrak.cat

    [Files.scsi.Fasttrak66_nt4]
    driver = d2, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d2, Fasttrak.inf
    ;catalog= d2, Fasttrak.cat

    [Files.scsi.Fasttrak100_nt4]
    driver = d2, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d2, Fasttrak.inf
    ;catalog= d2, Fasttrak.cat

    [Files.scsi.FastTrak_TX2_nt4]
    driver = d2, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d2, Fasttrak.inf
    ;catalog= d2, Fasttrak.cat

    [Files.scsi.FastTrak_TX2000_nt4]
    driver = d2, Fasttrak.sys, Fasttrak
    inf = d2, Fasttrak.inf
    ;catalog= d2, Fasttrak.cat

    [Config.Fasttrak]
    value = "", Tag, REG_DWORD, 1
    ------------------------------------------------------------
    The first thing I noticed was plain old fasttrak was commented out but there no copies of fasttrak.sys etc. in the root folder which is where d1 points. Next thing I was thinking was that maybe it didn't have the right hardware id's so here is my txtsetup.oem with the updated driver disk. (my post was too long so here is what I added essentially to original file)
    ------------------------------------------------------------


    [HardwareIds.scsi.Fasttrak100_net]
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_80421043","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0011458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0021458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0031458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0041458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0051458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0061458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0071458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0081458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B0091458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00A1458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00B1458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00C1458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00D1458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00E1458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_B00F1458","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_0065A0A0","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_30011695","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_321D1462","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_330D1462","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_337D1462","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_366D1462","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_369D1462","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_380D1462","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_394D1462","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_90011509","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_070110FD","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_086616F3","Fasttrak" ;
    id = "PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_0D30&SUBSYS_4D33105A","Fasttrak" ;

    -------------------------------------------------------------
    That was as far as I was able to get the the updated driver.
    On interesting thing to note though is that in the updated driver txtsetup.oem there are no semi colon's after the hardware id's which gave me something else to try on my other driver disk.

    In addition I have tried a version of Promise Fasttrak drivers for an intel board and the drivers load but fail at copying as in my original post. So the drivers I am referencing in my original post are the latest drivers for the fasttrak lite integrated controller/bios on the Asus web site.

    Great suggestion though!

  5. #5
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    Just so everyone knows. I have emailed Promise & Asus support but we all know my odds are better with the lottery.

  6. #6
    Driver Terrier NooNoo's Avatar
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    OK, so sling an ide drive in there, then try to load the drivers from windows. Does fasttrak.sys still fail?

    File\Winnet\Fasttrak.sys could not be loaded
    ... is the fasttrak.sys in the winnet directory and is the winnet directory in the root of a: ?
    Never, ever approach a computer saying or even thinking "I will just do this quickly."

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by NooNoo
    OK, so sling an ide drive in there, then try to load the drivers from windows. Does fasttrak.sys still fail?
    If I do that I will no longer need to press 'f6' to load a raid driver.

  8. #8
    Driver Terrier NooNoo's Avatar
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    True, but this is about proving that there is nothing wrong with fasttrak.sys. The same file is used in windows as it is in windows setup.
    Never, ever approach a computer saying or even thinking "I will just do this quickly."

  9. #9
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    I have been using integrated raid for quite some time but I do not install it every day or anything for a living. As I collect my thoughts here I see no relevance to your post. Let me make an analogy.

    Let's think back to the days of bus mastering with via and sis north and south bridges before they became mainstream. Can you recall installing Windows 98 and when you were finished you would have exclamation points in the device manager next to ide controllers? But the OS still booted up and was able to successfully read the drives without specific drivers for hard drive controllers.

    Now getting back to raid, as far was windows is concerned once the os is installed, it sees the c:\ partition on my raid 0 array as a partition on a hard drive and it will work even without a driver loaded because the bios reports it as a hard drive. Otherwise you would never see a windows splash screen or it could never read the MBR. I am familiar with this because I remember my KT7A-RAID which has a highpoint controller. That controller was never recognized by windows but it would still boot up into windows once the os was installed and then you would install the driver and raid manager software.

    The main benefit the driver is going to give me once the os is installed is that windows understands that c:\ partition is actually comprised of two drives and if I load the raid manager software it will display two drives. Performance wise the os only sees a hard drive because that is what the bios tells windows to see, one ide drive(with 3 partitions in my case). That is done by the controller on the hardware side and once windows is installed it receives that bios information. The system boots up and then reads the mbr on the raid 0 array and then from there windows is just as happy as can be because it thinks it is just reading files on a regular hard drive.

    SCSI hard drive controllers work the same way. If I take one of my old Tekram DC-90 ultra wide controllers and put a scsi drive that has a windows os in it. It will boot up windows. But when it comes to the windows installer I would have to load the scsi driver.

    So what relevance is it if fasttrak.sys is any good or not?
    The 2k3 installer is able to load fasttrak.sys and allows the installer to partition and format the raid 0 array. In my book the driver is working.

    Now we already know people have versions of 2k3 working on these integrated raid controllers. So windows is able to read the bios and understand that there is a hard drive connected to the promise fasttrak lite controller. Whether or not people can open the raid manager and actually see two drives is a different matter and one that I am not concerned about with regards to this installation file copy error. This is how I view fasttrak.sys.

  10. #10
    Driver Terrier NooNoo's Avatar
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    OK, but you missed the point. You asked for observations and/or things you may have overlooked.

    Given the information you had provided I came to the conclusion that you didn't need hand holding, just hinting at direction.

    One file, for some reason will not copy. Reasons for not copying a file are numerous, so you need to start at the common denominator... fasttrak.sys and the device that is reading it.

    By putting in an ide drive and then using the drivers from the floppy, you are narrowing down the problem to transfer from the floppy disk. You have not mentioned any testing of the floppy disk, the drive itself or its connections.

    It is up to you if you wish to (dis)prove the hypothesis or not. I merely present it for consideration.

    Just to muddy the waters, I have a floppy drive here that will work under windows on a particular machine, but not in windows setup, dos or other command line only environments. It will, however, work in every other machine I have in both DOS and Windows. Conclusion, there is something very odd going on, probably with the machine bios and the drive firmware, but for an £8 drive, I am not going to spend any more time on it since another make of drive works perfectly.

    Also you did not make comment about the path on the floppy disk that I pointed out in post #6.

    If fasttrak.sys is deliberately removed from the disk, does the error message change? If it changes to "cannot find" or some derivative thereof, then the file is being read, in the correct path, but cannot be written which would point to
    bad hdd cable(s)
    bad blocks on the hdd(s)
    overclocked cpu/ram
    failing ram
    failing l2 cache
    etc.

    If you are upgrading (rather than a clean install), then it also could be a permissions/file locking problem.

    Another interesting experiment would be to have a clean copy of 2k loaded, then upgrade within windows to 2k3.

    But as I said, it is up to you.
    Never, ever approach a computer saying or even thinking "I will just do this quickly."

  11. #11
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    Have you tried to make a copy of the 2k3 CD and before burning the copy put the fasttrak.sys file into the i386 directory on the new cd as well as having the txtsetup.oem file?

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    Oh my, I was hopping back on here to update and I don't see my last reply. I must have forgot to press submit... silly me.

    With regards to the hardware in general. This has been more than a server migration. Since I knew I was going to change the server and this is the last box I have this old, I decided to clean out all of my old hardware and ebay all of my old misc stuff. I intended to keep the best of whatever I had in this box here but it turned out the only thing I had better than what was already in it was a vid card and I swapped out an old ATI All In Wonder Pro AGP for a Radeon 7200. But in the process since I didn't have anything else to test on I spent the last two weeks running tests on my old 128 & 256 SDRAM's, old chips, old drives, etc. While I was at it I tested everything in the box as well. For testing I am using manufacturer hard drive tools like seatools, memtest, a post board and its included software suite, etc. I haven't tested the floppy but most these tools I am using are on floppies. I am 99.9% certain I do not have a hardware problem. I am not saying there isn't one but it's a pretty slim chance.

    With regards to post #6... my fault I missed it.
    The original driver expands to:
    A:\txtsetup.oem, fasttrak
    A:\Winnet\fasttrak.sys, fasttrak.cat, fasttrak.inf

    When that fails to copy I change txtsetup.oem around and copy everything to root like this:
    A:\txtsetup.oem, fasttrak, fasttrak.sys, fasttrak.inf, fasttrak.cat

    Now since I have test so many floppies I can tell you that if txtsetup.oem is wrong setup will fail when it first tries to load driver before you get to format and partition. It will generate an error message similar or identical to post #4.

    Once the driver loads and you partition and format and it fails at cannot copy however it is very easy to put the floppy in another computer and make changes and retry.

    W2K is not a valid upgrade path for 2K3.

    I currently have WinXP Home installed on this box we are talking about. During the XP Home install I pressed 'f6' and everything worked perfect (except for dang Radeon 7200 drivers hehe always something). Since I do not have a copy of XP Pro laying around I got a torrent ISO of XP Pro overnight and have since installed XP Pro (I can't do much else with XP Pro because I do not have keys and can't activate etc. but I know the miniport driver copies and works for install purposes)

    So that is four OS's I know setup works fine on this controller: NT, W2K, XP HOME, XP PRO

    After reflecting on this I am expanding my original thought that it is a path problem to that it might be a WHCL problem. Since I do not install OS's everyday or very often for that matter, someone more experienced might have some input on if and where 2K3 checks HardwareID's for WHCL and if so what files they are on the CD.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by futuretech
    Have you tried to make a copy of the 2k3 CD and before burning the copy put the fasttrak.sys file into the i386 directory on the new cd as well as having the txtsetup.oem file?
    No I haven't tried this. Will drivers install by just doing that? Microsoft has always said if you use 'f6' the drivers have to be on a floppy. If I knew what the destinations were it seems like it would be possible to create a batch file to add the HardwareID's to the appropriate keys and copy the files. I say possible because implementing this batch file is outside of my installation experience level without a detailed guide. And that is if its even possible to do a batch file during install.

    At one point I thought about putting fasttrak.sys on the cd and changing the path in txtsetup.oem to d:\%PATH%\fasttrak.sys but I haven't tried it yet.

    I thought my only other option would be to slipstream the drivers in for an unattended install. I haven't read a lot on going this route but I have seen /i386/$OEM$ and winst (or some similar named inf file) pop up in a lot of threads. I really haven't read up on unattended installation, slipstreaming, and answer files. Has just never been something I have needed for the few computers I have.
    I do have a UBCD that has SP2 slipstreamed and some other plugin's so I am familiar with the concept.

    In all honesty though now that I have seen the driver work on all of the other windows os's I am really curious about what makes the 2K3 installer different.

    The 2k3 SP2 cd I have is a genuine MS cd so I haven't tried any other cd's.

  14. #14
    Driver Terrier NooNoo's Avatar
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    Sorry I thought you were talking about 2k server, not pro.

    Found this check list The partition should be done with the array management utility.
    ...tries to load driver before you get to format and partition.
    Possibly the partition is not set right and that is preventing the copy? I think you have proved it reads ok, but writing the file is something entirely different.


    A long time ago I had a promise oem (maxtor branded) pci ide card. I could not get the damn drivers to work right with 2k server. Eventually I discovered that the promise driver wouldn't work and that the only one that did was the Maxtor supplied driver.

    So I guess I am saying that using the 2k3 driver from promise may not be the right driver and that you will need to get Asus to supply you a 2k3 driver.
    Having said that, the wrong driver copied fine, it just wouldn't work right!
    Never, ever approach a computer saying or even thinking "I will just do this quickly."

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by NooNoo
    Sorry I thought you were talking about 2k server, not pro.
    Let me clarify in case my posts aren't clear. I am migrating from 2k server to 2k3 server, have previously used nt on same box, and have installed xp home and xp pro in the last 48 hours for test purposes. I am really not sure what you are referring to.

    Quote Originally Posted by NooNoo
    The partition should be done with the array management utility.
    I am going to overlook this because I do not think you are familiar with that utility and what it actually does or does not do. I partition with fdisk for installation and use utilities like partition magic, etc. to resize basic partitions or other things fdisk won't do.

    Quote Originally Posted by NooNoo
    A long time ago I had a promise oem (maxtor branded) pci ide card. I could not get the damn drivers to work right with 2k server. Eventually I discovered that the promise driver wouldn't work and that the only one that did was the Maxtor supplied driver.

    So I guess I am saying that using the 2k3 driver from promise may not be the right driver and that you will need to get Asus to supply you a 2k3 driver.
    Having said that, the wrong driver copied fine, it just wouldn't work right!
    The driver that actually works is the Asus XP driver. Asus does not have a 2k3 driver. I think you will recall post #3 where you pointed out I was using an XP driver. The reason for this is simple. There are no other drivers out there that work. Historically it has always been hit or miss using manufacturer drivers with integrated controllers. With regards to the Asus A7V133 it does not even have a full featured fasttrak 100, it is a fasttrak lite. It does not have all of the features of the regular fasttrak 100 and only support raid 0 or 1. In addition where the fasttrak 100 addon card has its own bios, the bios for the fasttrak lite is integrated in the the system bios. If you will recall I pointed out in post #4 i tried the promise driver already.

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