PROMISE TECHNOLOGY - COMPATIBILITY NOTES 1. QEMM STEALTH (DC200, DC4030VL series) When the Disk I/O Handler is set to Turbo mode, part of the Promise BIOS is shadowed into the last 1K of conventional memory. This conflicts with the Stealth option in QEMM because both are trying to intercept INT13 calls. (This is also why MFT and the MEM command will show there being 639K of conventional memory instead of 640K). There are three different ways of getting around this - a) Set the Disk I/O Handler to FAST b) Run Optimize / Stealth - QEMM will then attempt to come up with some parameters to get around the conflict. c) Add the parameter XSTI=13 on the line in CONFIG.SYS that loads QEMM - This tells Stealth to exclude Stealthing INT13 The first option will allow Stealth to load for certain. We have had mixed success using these last 2 options, possibly depending on what hardware and software are on the system. 2. WESTERN DIGITAL HARD DRIVES (DC200, DC420, and DC4030VL series) We have gotten reports that some Western Digital drives will not work when they are in a Master mode with a Slave attached. This is not a consistent problem as we have many customers using Western Digital drives in a Master mode with no problem and we have experienced no problems with the Western Digital drives in our labs. However, we have received reports that a system will not boot up with a Western Digital drive in a Master mode. When the drive is configured as a slave or a single drive, there is no problem. This is not specific to any particular model. Even among the same model number, some drives will have no problem, but others will. For example, one customer had 3 WD2340's. One would work as a Master but the other 2 wouldn't. Workaround Options- a) Try different drive orders. As stated before, some Western Digital drives will be fine in a Master mode. Or, if the Master drive is a non-Western Digital, there should be no problem with Western Digi- tal as a Slave drive. b) If you have a DC200 or DC4030VL and 2 Western Digital drives and neither one will work in a Master mode, configure each drive as a Single drive and hook them up separately, one to each IDE connector on the controller card. In this configuration, only the first drive would be set up in the system CMOS. The second drive would be accessed by loading the driver DOSDRV.SYS from CONFIG.SYS. c) In some cases, removing all jumpers from the Master Western Digital drive allowed the system to boot where it would not boot if the Master jumper was on the drive. 3. SEAGATE DRIVE IN SLAVE POSITION (DC200, and DC4030VL series) Some Seagate drives in a slave postion will be slow to respond to an IDENTIFY_DRIVE command such as that issued by the DC200 and DC4030VL series controllers. This will cause a delay on a reboot. Workaround Options- a) Change drive order b) If you have 2 drives, configure each drive as a single drive and hook each one up to it's own connector on the controller card. In this configuration, only the first drive would be set up in the system CMOS. The second drive would be accessed by loading the driver DOSDRV.SYS from CONFIG.SYS. 4. SYQUEST, BERNOULLI (All caching models) The Promise caching controllers will not recognize a disk change in the removable media drives. This is because when these drives send the disk change signal, it is a command that our caching algorithm does not under- stand. The system must be powered down in order for the new disk to be recognized. 5. DRIVES LARGER THAN 528MB (All IDE controllers other than EIDE2300Plus) Under DOS and Windows there is a limitation of 528MB for each hard drive (504MB as reported by FDISK). For a small charge there is an upgrade BIOS available for the DC200/200M, DC4030VL-1, and DC4030VL-2 controllers which will do LBA (Logical Block Addressing) and allow DOS to recognize drives larger than 528MB. To receive this upgrade BIOS, call 408-452-1180 and follow the voice prompts for if you have a DC4030VL series controller and want to support drives larger than 528 MB under DOS. 6. ON-TRACK DISK MANAGER On-Track's Disk Manager cannot be used in conjunction with the DOS drivers (PTIDOS.SYS, DOSDRV.SYS, DC2000.SYS, DC4000.SYS, DC2300.SYS, VLIDE.SYS, and EIDE2300.SYS)for Promise controllers or other manufacturer's controllers which use Promise chipsets. (DC200 and DC4030VL-x) - If there is only one or two hard drives attached, there is no problem using Disk Manager, although you may need to update to Disk Manager version 6.02 or newer if you experience the system locking up when the Disk Manager driver is attempting to load. 7. IDE INTERFACE TAPE BACKUP AND CD-ROM DRIVES (All caching models) IDE interface tape and CD-ROM drives are not compatible when attached to these controllers. Tape backups that attach to the the floppy connector will work fine. 8. DR DOS 6.0 (DC2032, DC200, and DC4030VL series) If you are using DR DOS 6.0 and earlier, you will be limited to partitions no larger than 32 MB on any drives attached to the second IDE connector on the controller. This is because DR DOS reports back as being MS DOS 3.3 to the PTIDOS.SYS or DOSDRV.SYS driver. This problem will not occur with NOVELL DOS 7.0. 9. SYMPHONY CHIPSET OR UMC CHIPSET REV. 82C491F and WINDOWS NT/ NORTON BACKUP FOR WINDOWS/ MSBACKUP FOR WINDOWS (DC200, DC4030VL series, and DC4000) If you have a motherboard with one of these chipsets and are using Windows NT, it is not possible to format a floppy disk. The National Semiconductor 2.88 floppy controller chip used on these controller cards has a conflict with Windows NT and these motherboard chipsets. At the this time there is no workaround. There is no problem with Windows NT and any other chipset, and there is no problem formatting floppies with Windows 3.1x and either the Symphony or the UMC chipset. There is also a problem with Norton Backup for Windows with these chipsets. When doing the compatibility test it will report a DMA and Video conflict. MSBACKUP for Windows will also fail with these chipsets. 10. ORCHID P9000 VIDEO CARD (All controllers with External BIOS) By default this video card comes set to use upper memory address C000-DFFF. This takes up all the areas that the PROMISE BIOS can reside, so the BIOS will not load and the controller cache count and Cache Setup Utility message will not be displayed. In order for the PROMISE BIOS to load, the video card must be set to 8-bit mode. The video card will then use C000-C7FF. 11. SECURITY KEYS (DC2000,4000, and DC2300) There are some software programs that look for a security key, or a dongle, attached to the parallel port. The parallel port of the DC2000 and DC2300 must be set to "Output Only" for the software to recognize these security keys. The DC4000 comes set to Bi-Directional and has no jumpers to change this setting, so those software programs would not be compatible.