Help with Promise Ultra 133

[Drgnfyre]

I recently added the Promise Ultra drivers to my XPcreate image - everything seemed to be working fine. (yes, everything was working fine BEFORE I added the drivers.)

The problem I am having now is, Windows XP will Install just fine (even sees the drives on the card in text setup mode, which is great), however, when actually booting into windows, windows will just sit there and get nowhere (at the Windows XP screen, with the small graphical bar). Safe mode is no help, unfortunately.

I did a little experimenting, and I could get windows to boot off the drive when it was on the onboard controller. Whenever I try and add my Ultra 133 to the system, however, it exhibits this problem. I've tried pulling out all my other hardware to troubleshoot this.

In an act of desparation, I deleted the existing ultra.sys in my windows\system32\drivers directory. I did this outside of windows so it wouldn't 'catch' the deletion and restore the file.. yay, windows is booting.. until it tries to add the drivers - then things get wierd..

I have a copy of the drivers in my \drivers\ultra folder, and have pointed to that folder in winnt.sif.

My main question (such a long post for a short question) is - has anyone ran into problems like this before? I'm not sure at this point if it's the driver integration killing it, or something else. So far, i've not actually tested my xpcreate CD on this particular system, so i don't know if removing the ultra drivers from the image will fix it (I'm going to test this tomorrow however). I have used my xpcreate cd for several machines at work, with no problems - however, none of them had the ultra 133 card.

The other concern/question i had was - on XPCreate's site, he talks about making sure you use the latest -digitally- signed drivers for your sata/raid card. I cannot find any such creature on promise's website, even though he lists promise as a tested card. Am I missing something? Are the ones on their website digitally signed, and they just don't say it?

My next test will be to remake the disk without the sata/raid drivers - I won't be able to test that on my machine until tomorrow night, however.

Any insight the XPCreate Gurus can offer would be excellent.

[edit] - Just thought I would add - this is using the latest xpcreate, and not the version currently in testing. I might give that a shot after i get this problem resolved, however..

[GreenMachine]

My old song ... make a failsafe XPCREATION using the latest (XPCTEST) version, only adding the files on the Failsafe List on the Web Site (Current Hotfixes, in bold). Install this CD using F6 and a SATA driver diskette. That will confirm both the XPCREATION and your SATA drivers. Once that is working, post back, email me your drivers, and we will work on the SATA integration.

I have many digital signed versions of the "ULTRA" driver. If there is a .CAT file included with the drivers, it is digitally signed.

The ULTRA controller is a bit tricky, in that there are many, many different versions of drivers with the ULTRA name, and they do not necessarily work with all pobbible hardware.

Let me know when you have an XPCREATE/F6 setup combination working ...

[Drgnfyre]

Thanks, Greenmachine. Failsafe mode is indeed my next test. The 'digitally signed' bit was what was throwing me the most. My drivers do indeed have the .cat file with them, so that answers that question, at least.

I will try it without the drivers integrated and report back as to my success or failure. I'm guessing that it will work, as I've used this cd on many other systems without the ultra card with great success.

Thanks again for the input, and a big thanks for XPCreate in the first place!

[GreenMachine]

Cool. Once you get it going, send me your drivers. My address is below.

Keep me posted!