Promise FastTrak TX4310 Problem with 4 HDD (case:Raid 5)

[bloodfire]

I have bought this card fasttrak TX4310 with 4 HDD Hitachi 250 Go SATA2

-When i build my RAID 5 with 3 HDD all work fine

-When i build or just want to boot with 4 HDD on the card, the windows doesn't start....

Can't understand...

no power supply problem, i 'have tried differents graphics card, another powersupply (i already have a 430W PSU)
My Mother board is a standard Asrock KT7 Pro with 512 Mo RAM
and an Athlon 2400+ processor.

I don't know how to make it work.
I'm going to upgrade the card firmware but the changelog doesn't deal with this problem...

Somebody have a solution?

 

[BushLin]

Is it when you add a specific HDD or just when there are 4 present?
If you can track it down to one drive then it may very well be a failing drive, possibly could be just one channel on the card playing silly buggers.
Otherwise I'd check for updated driver/firmware for your card, even if it doesn't list the particular fix the developers sometimes don't like to admit mistakes 😀

 

[bloodfire]

-=DRIVE CHECK=-

- It's sure that every drives are OK. Tested with construtor tools (hitachi) et configured for SATA 2 with the same tools
- I have done a "media patrol" on each drive too.

-The only solution i see is to update the firmware with the last as you told before, perhaps developpers don't admit their failures... (Ahem)

-=CARD CHECK=-
I'v tried to boot with only 3 drives with different SATA slots on the card to identify a failure ... but it always works with 3 hard drives... no matter the slot or the drive i use... i tried a lot of combination.

-=A WORD=-
I'd like to tell that this card is around 130 $ and i can't understand they didn't test it more than that! Why making a product if it doesn't work properly...

-=THE PROBLEM=-
-I've found out other people with the same problem
-I know that the problem appears when 4 Drives are plugged in but i don't know if there is a link with the RAID Mode or not... They have to find it out 😀 for their honor o^_^o

-I can see the bios, devices detection, FastTrak menu, (can enter in the fasttrak interface and see the drive status is ok...)
--> if i let the system continue the startup, it freezes just before the beginning of the OS loading (2003 or else not important)

-Promise (i call them) told me to try disabling the write cache of the controller to improve stability before a new firmware comes out... one day ... ^^

-=OTHER TESTS=-
I'll try to put the last firmware on the card even if nothing is mentionned about boot problems...
if it doesn't work, i'll put only 3 drives on the controler.........

ps: i'm french, if you can correct some english errors i did.. Thank you (to increase my english lvl)