Promise 378 Fasttrak raid drivers won't copy (xp installation)

There was a thread that was made a long while ago where someone had exactly the same problem as me. Here is the link: http://forums.windrivers.com/showthr...light=fasttrak

I'm making another thread because this problem didn't seem to ever get resolved. I have read a mind-numbing amount of pages trying to find a solution but no one seems to have figured it out yet. Anyway if the link doesn't work or you don't want to read it here is my setup and the problem I'm having...

Asus P4P800-E Deluxe
P4 3.2GHZ
1 GB DDR400
2 Maxtor 300GB SATA in raid 0 array

I have exactly the same raid controller as the other person. The promise fasttrak 378. The raid array was easy to setup, when the computer boots up it says its functional and continues booting, then xp installation starts I press F6 to install the raid drivers, they load and windows xp recognizes and formats the drive, loads a few more files and then says "setup cannot copy the file: fasttx2k.sys". I have tried continuing the installation by skipping the files and it finishes but when winxp tries to boot for the first time it goes to the blue screen. The drivers I have came from the CD that was included with the mobo, I have tried putting them in every kind of different logical directory on the diskette but no matter what I cannot get these files copied and without them I cannot install windows onto my raid 0 array. So my question for everyone out there is has anyone had this problem and found a way to get these files installed without using the workaround methods described in the link above? Any other kind of advice is greatly appreciated as well.

HAAA!!!! Geesh, that link brings back memories. https://forums.windrivers.com/images.../2005/03/1.gif My first fight with teh Yak. https://forums.windrivers.com/images.../2006/04/1.gif
Listen, I'm in a hurry now, but I will get back after I remember what the heck I did to solve that one. Afer all, it was a year and a half ago...
Way to go to start a new thread. I mean I even pm'd the original poster to ask what he did and he replied but...

You weren't clear how you made the floppy. There should be a (if I recall correctly) make disk bat file, or executable on the CD that creates the floppy. You have to do this on a system already running windows. Is that what you did, or did you just manually copy files to the floppy?

Actually I did both. There is a makedisk program on the mobo cd which is what I did first. Again, when windows firsts asks for them (when you have to press F6) it works fine. But when setup starts copying files it will not copy those files for some reason. And I also tried manually copying the correct files from the mobo cd straight to a diskette. No luck on either end.

Well after more extensive searching and even posting in other forums and found no answers I've decided what I'll do for now is get an IDE hard drive and just install windows on that and have the raid array as the second hard drive. I know for sure that will work because everything I have read basically says that installing these particular drivers is no problem on a machine already running windows. If this one works okay I may also attempt buying a second IDE hard drive and putting those two in an array and seeing if I can get that to work as well (asus p4p800-e deluxe has raid controllers for both SATA and IDE). If anyone knows anything before I do any of this please tell me asap. Otherwise, thanks for your time reading my post.

Just an idea for you, I don't know exactly what the fastt2k.sys actually stands for, as far as the 2k goes. But I remember installing this driver and it has options for a handful of Microsoft OS's. This may be just a stupid idea, but usually with computers it is something simple and stupid. So what I am getting at here is, are you sure the 2k in this fasttr2k.sys file isn't referring to windows 2k. I can't remember the different file names for these drivers, but hey why not check it out. Maybe you are installing a driver for the wrong OS.

I am absolutely positive. 2k refers to the number in the series of raid controllers that were produced. There are also seperate drivers for windows 2k. And to top it all off I have tried installing windows 2k with this setup and exactly the same thing happened. :/

All the guys who seem to have solved this problem (from googling, as I haven't had this problem myself) , seemed to get around this by slipstreaming the drivers into a setup disc, thus making them 'native xp drivers' ..

Pressing f6 isn't to just add raid drivers, I think what it says is 'add 3rd party drivers' ;)

I have Had exactly the same problem installing the OS XP PRO onto my ASUS, Question. Are you trying to run XP with SP2 on it?if so then use a disk without service packs on it ,as i have found that i had exactly the same problem, then i used a disc without service pack 2 on it and it worked like a dream. Install sp2 later!.

I'm having the exact same problem but with different controllers (I have nVidia & Silicon Image controllers). I found this article at MS, wonder if the last paragraph sheds any light on the subject for why the driver copy fails? I'm going to slipstream the drivers & hope that works.

What size clusters did you select for your raid?

I read somewhere that this could be an issue for larger drives. And since yours would format to just under 600 gigs...that could be the problem.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Larommi

I read somewhere that this could be an issue for larger drives..

---

Any 'clues' on that bit ? Generally most people would leave the default cluster size as setup routines don't really tell you what the implications are (I'm thinking performance wise, but maybe there's other considerations too, like it goes wrong if greater than x ?) when you pick this value.

Just to continue adding my two cents, the slipstreaming worked fine. Win XP (with SP2) installed fine on the array.

In reference to the larger drives are you talking about the fact that Win XP (without SP2) doesn't like drive sizes above 137GB, or the cluster size? My cluster is set to 64K which is what the nVidia default was.

~Dann

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dann.pool

, or the cluster size? My cluster is set to 64K which is what the nVidia default was.

---

That was what I was on about ;) ..

You can make your cluster size in an array, greater or lesser to improve performance for expected reads - my 'educated guess' on what Larommi was on about, was that if you set the cluster size right down (you reduce a thing calld 'slack' with this, which is 'disk wastage' for want of a better two word 'explain') you might end up with too many physical clusters for any controller to deal with if you started using large disks - I just wanted a link to back that up/ disprove it ;)

But ta for the confirmation, that at least in your case, a slipstreamed copy of xp got you around this problem :thumbs:

I realize this thread is nearly a year old, but I hope to shed some light on it:

I have the P4P800-E Deluxe board also, and I have both the IDE RAID and SATA RAID running. My only advice is to triple check that you have downloaded both drivers from Asus, because the names are very similar.

SATA RAID: Promise SATA378 Driver V1.00.0.26
IDE RAID: Promise FastTrak 378 RAID Driver V1.00.1.37

I have tested the 2003 drivers for both of these on Vista and they work. And I have used them both under XP before. Currently I use both under Gentoo Linux (2.6 Kernel) and they work wonderfully.

If you have already checked all of these things, then keep in mind that these boards may be expensive and great, but are known to have small bugs. (I bought two of them and one of the boards' onboard Marvel LAN never worked, ever.)

Hope this helps someone.

Welcome to Windrivers bblueffire

Thanks for the info, I am sure someone will make good use of it.

bump!!!
Can anyone please help! i have the exact same problem as the person who made this thread..
I really wanna install winXP on it, that's the reason i bought the 2 hd's; to make them RAID0 and install winxp on them..

That thing bbluefire said about watching careful what drivers you install, well he's wrong..

SATA RAID: Promise SATA378 Driver V1.00.0.26
IDE RAID: Promise FastTrak 378 RAID Driver V1.00.1.37

Well if u try installing SATA RAID: Promise SATA378 Driver V1.00.0.26 with SATA RAID the winXP installation will tell you that you have no harddrive lol

Depending on the particular harddrives used you may as I had to install a jumper.
Some sata drives need a jumper to be recognized. I was using Seagate on a highpoint promise controller and it wouldnt detect it till I put a jumper on

I have already installed windows vista before on this raid array.. but now i wanna install XP after i formatted it and it gives me the problem that it cant find a file that's ON the floppy :/

:(((((

So which file is it?
Usually that can be added to the floppy to correct the issue or the disk is not good

Follow the instructions and all should go well -

http://support.asus.com/technicaldocuments/PDC20378.pdf.


Not that things can't go wrong, but if everything WAS ok then it should still BE ok.


:)

to CCT: Those instructions do NOT work with the ASUS P4C800-e DELUXE, it gives me the same error i've always gotten.

to FERRIT: The files the windows setup is looking for are ALREADY on the floppy.. the windows setup even COPIED them when it asked me to press F6 to install raid drivers.

Any idea how to fix it? Because the thread starter has the same problem but he gave up..

On my Asus P5GD1 Sata-Raid floppy there are 2 options you are offered when you press 'F6' and then 'S' (I know, that is the Intel stuff but technically I believe it functions the same).

These are for S-ATA Raid or S-ATA; if I just wanted my S-ATA drives to run as basic IDE P-ATA I wouldn't need the Sata-Raid floppy.

But, for Raid or for AHCI S-ATA operation, you need one or the other.

Many installers I have read say it is best to install BOTH when doing the Sata-Raid route. I did, no problem occurred.

:)

ps: I believe this is right - I never tried to run my HD's as IDE without the Sata-Raid drivers loaded because I wanted to be able to switch to Raid quickly.

:///// HEEEEEELP T_____T ive spent over 15 hours looking around at 15989 websites..

I wanna try slipstreaming but I need an old version of roxio burning rom or easy cd creator which i can't find anywhere... ugh

I finally did it! I found out how to bypass the stupid missing file error during windows installation. Slipstreaming!

Follow this guide:
http://maximumpc.com/2005/01/how_to_slipstre.html

Glad you worked it out genji.

Another thread I read linked to a newer promise zip file that worked for an error 18 re the 378.sys file (64 bit);

http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mis...bit_100139.zip


I also came across this information from this thread ( http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=41560 );

'The Promise WinXP FastTrack 376 driver delivered on the Asus cd was suitable but I didn't know that the bootable cd-r rom drive had to be the FIRST booting device. It was the second and the first was the floppy drive.
When I pressed F6 and mounted the floppy I kept getting this: "File \WinXP\fasttx2k.sys caused an unexpected error (18) at line 2113 in d:\xpsprtm\base\boot\setup\oemdisk.c."

As the matter of fact, the needed Promise driver was being searched on the floppy but the rest of the drivers was on the Windows installation cd. I didn't realize that Bios wouldn't switch to the next booting device automatically as it normally does.'

I had the same problem with Vista, I did not want to use the the Promise Controller as RAID, I just want to run SATA some extra SATA Drives.

I set the Promise controller in the BIOS to IDE.
If you don't want to use the Promise Controller as RAID, you need to use a different Driver.
I used the CD that came my ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe Board.
On the CD go to Directory .:\Drivers\Promise
If you intend NOT to use RAID: use the drivers in the directory 378ATA (for SATA too)
For Raid use the drivers in the directory 378RAID

Hope this helps...

Welcome to Windrivers Rail and thanks for the info.

Sorry to do this again! I know this thread is yet again a year old... but I left my name on my last post.. could you (an admin) get rid of that for me for privacy reasons? Thanks so much! :D

I think it must have been done since I can't see your name on the last post at the bottom of page 1.