# Need ATA133 help to convert a user to Gentoo

## Sivar

I have a friend, Slackware user. who has been unable to use Linux for a month because he cannot get his Promise ATA133 controller to work in Linux.  Does anyone have this controller working? He says he's tried a driver for it and it made his drive hang and "make funky noises."

If so, please let me know how as he will try Gentoo if it works.

If the Promise card is a no go, what other ATA133 non-RAID card will work? Anything? C'mon, if you have any ideas please share.

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## pjp

Some kernels have problems with the Promise controller.  A solution might be to do a 

'make mrproper' then 'make menu config' and continue the kernel build process.  

There are several threads discussing Promise issues.

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## Sivar

[quote="kanuslupus"]Some kernels have problems with the Promise controller.  A solution might be to do a 

'make mrproper' then 'make menu config' and continue the kernel build process.  

What kernels do not have these issues? He's a programmer and has hacked kernel code so I imagine he's probably tried many things. I

 *Quote:*   

> There are several threads discussing Promise issues.

 

Could you point me to a few? I did various searches and found a few, but nothing particularly related. Perhaps I am using the wrong search words. Has anyone reported getting a 160GB HDD working well?

I should post his system specs:

128 MB RAM

K63-400

Maxtor 160 GB

Promise Ultra133tx2 controller

Tyan motherboard/newest BIOS

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## klieber

moving to hardware forum.

--kurt

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## pjp

 *Sivar wrote:*   

> What kernels do not have these issues? He's a programmer and has hacked kernel code so I imagine he's probably tried many things.

 

Well, I don't completely understand the issue myself.  From what I've read, versions 2.4.19-r5 through 

r7 have had problems.  Though someone reported using r5 or r7 after using 'make mrproper'.  I've also 

read about using a vanilla kernel versus gentoo kernels with the latter having problems.  I haven't had 

problems with my drive or controller yet.

Doing a 'uname -a', I get this:

```

Linux pc1 2.4.19-r1 #15 SMP Thu May 23 10:53:56 MST 2002 i686 AuthenticAMD
```

 *Quote:*   

> Could you point me to a few? I did various searches and found a few, but nothing particularly related. Perhaps I am using the wrong search words.

 

I did a search on just 'promise' and came up with 95 results the other day.  I was attempting to find 

solid info about what kernels did or didn't work.  Alot to wade through.  Thats when I found the info 

on 'make mrproper'.

 *Quote:*   

> Has anyone reported getting a 160GB HDD working well?

 Beleive I've heard of 120's, don't think I've seend 160's mentioned.

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## rommel

i just built a system with the new giga-byte kt333 board...it had onboard lan ata133raid (promise) and onboard sound blaster...very cool board...anyway...while i was waiting on the case adn monitor i set it up on a tech stand and loaded gentoo on it....(latest sources and /dev/md0 running xfs)...used the promise ata133 controller the latest gentoo sources and set up LSR on two maxtor ata133 drives.....the bios allowed the chipset to toggle from the raid bios to just a regular ata133 ide controller....or you could even turn it off...anyway it worked just fine.Last edited by rommel on Sat Jun 22, 2002 5:41 am; edited 1 time in total

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## pjp

Has he even tried to install yet?  My guess is, if he has problems with the install, 

the forums could help resolve any issues he may run into.  Kind of difficult to solve 

problems before they happen  :Very Happy: 

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