Windows 7 Promise SATA driver question.

nitewulf

Honorable Member
Joined
Oct 20, 2009
I'm getting ready to update a 3.4 P4 system from XP Pro to windows 7 (32 bit). The MB is an Asus PC4800-E.
I have a WD 320GB Sata drive attached to the Promise onboard controller. The Win7 upgrade advisor says:
WinXP Promise SATA378 (tm) IDE Controller
Promise Technology

Not compatible
This device isn't compatible with Windows 7.


There are obviously no Win7 drivers on the Asus website, only WinXP drivers on the MB CD. Am I assuming right that the Win7 installation will fail due to "incompatible drivers" or will not be able to see the hard drive? I realize I may have to load drivers during the install (just like the F6 routine loading XP), but what drivers will I use? The P4C800-E board is very common so someone must have attempted an install to a SATA HD. Any help will be appreciated. I don't want to buy windows 7 if it will not install. Everything else is fine according to the upgrade advisor.
 
There are only 64-bit RAID drivers but no Promise 64-bit SATA drivers for the A8V Deluxe on Windows 7 (and I tried hacking in every driver out there I could find). Therefore, you must set up brand new (or wiped) disks in RAID mode to utilize the two Promise SATA connectors. For any existing disks: They need to go on the VIA connectors, not the promise connectors.
One warning is that you CANNOT do this for existing drives or the beginning of your disk will be wiped by RAID data. Therefore, they will be erased. You will need to plug existing drivers into the 2 VIA SATA slots to copy data.
Otherwise, you can install 32-bit Windows 7 and be able to use SATA on the integrated Promise card, though what a waste so I recommend the RAID approach instead since you don't get any gains from running it in SATA vs RAID mode aside from slightly more disk space.

I personally have 2 1TB drives in Mirroring mode on the Promise card. However, you should be able to have 2 disks, with each as a seperate RAID channel (though you will lose a slight amount of disk space from RAID configuration data versus SATA)
 
Thanks, netdragon. I'll follow your advice if I decide to try and upgrade.
 
Back
Top Bottom