its a cheap chinese knockoff.

reflash the latest bios, https://www.promise.com/DownloadFile.aspx?Dow … oadFileUID=3011

Are you using sata3 drives? some drives refuse to work at 150 speed. (ssd's included)

luckybob wrote:

its a cheap chinese knockoff.

reflash the latest bios, https://www.promise.com/DownloadFile.aspx?Dow … oadFileUID=3011

Are you using sata3 drives? some drives refuse to work at 150 speed. (ssd's included)

Pflash errors with "Controller NOT FOUND!" message.

From what I have found out the PD200378 was only used by promise on some Asus motherboards for extra sata/ide ports. I will try some of the asus utilities to flash it.

is this it?

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru& … rticle_id%3D794

Sorry about your loss mate

A lot of these are for sale on Ebay and Amazon. You see the promise controller and think they might be legit cards. Hopefully this thread will warn buyers to be alert of these cards in the future.

You MUST make an array. Even if it is only 1 disk.

That is how those controllers work. They have to have an array set up.

Once the array is set up, it will then let you initialize it and it will work in DOS/Windows/whatever.

And it isn't because it is a knockoff controller. Every single add-in RAID controller requires you to make an array to be able to use the disk(s) attached to it.

If you want to boot from an add-in controller, you will also need to set the BIOS to boot from either add-in card or SCSI as the add-in cards are seen as SCSI controllers.

If you get one without a BIOS, it will only work with drives that are supported by the motherboard BIOS and may not be bootable.

cyclone3d wrote:

And it isn't because it is a knockoff controller. Every single add-in RAID controller requires you to make an array to be able to use the disk(s) attached to it.

this is categorically false. His controller doesn't support JBOD mode which is the problem with it. The problem is that raid controller card is junk.

To be fair...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E55t0lnp_8M

Calling that promise chip a raid, is like calling this https://sep.yimg.com/ay/scootercatalog/rideon … -for-kids-2.jpg a Harley Davidson.

It is entirely possible a single drive might require to be setup as a "raid array". on that particular chip. But warlord is correct, every proper raid card i've owned defaults to jbod and words fine.

Thats what I was thinking considering that that controller is like comparing a moped to a motercycle, and taking into account that it deson't support JBOD which is not even a moped its like a scooter, the most basic thing that a card should have and the problem is that it doesn't even do that. It is like a plastic bigwheel without a steering wheel. Its just horrible,

I can't flash the card yet, old threads suggest looking for an older version of ptiflash (v1.09) that can force flash a raid only fasttrak card to a standard Ultra one and vice versa.
I used uniflash v1.4 to load the card as a pci device and it enabled me to backup the firmware (but not flash it). The firmware on the card is 64KB, I have attached it.

Looks like you got a card that isn't what it was... promised to be.

oeuvre wrote:

Looks like you got a card that isn't what it was... promised to be.

Horatio Caine approves

Warlord wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

And it isn't because it is a knockoff controller. Every single add-in RAID controller requires you to make an array to be able to use the disk(s) attached to it.

this is categorically false. His controller doesn't support JBOD mode which is the problem with it. The problem is that raid controller card is junk.

The Promise Sata 1 - 150 controllers are the best I have found that have Windows 98 support.

They are perfect for machines where you need an add-in PCI controller that has support for Windows 98.

Is there a better add-in bootable SATA controller with Windows 98 drivers? The SIL and VIA ones have major issues so those don't count.

According to the definition of JBOD, those controllers do support JBOD.. just not the spanning feature which is useless with retro machines anyway.

JBOD (which stands for "just a bunch of disks") generally refers to a collection of hard disks that have not been configured to act as a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) array.

RAID arrays write data across multiple disks as a way of storing data redundantly (to achieve fault tolerance) or to stripe data across multiple disks to get better performance than any one disk could provide on its own. Typically, a RAID array will appear to the operating system as a single disk.

JBOD is an alternative to using a RAID configuration. Rather than configuring a storage array to use a RAID level, the disks within the array are either spanned or treated as independent disks. Spanning configurations use a technique called concatenation to combine the capacity of all of the disks into a single, large logical disk. Although some RAID levels also concatenate disks, numbered RAID levels generally use striping or parity while JBOD does not.

After messing around I now have it working.
The official Promise bios flasher tools wouldn't flash the card so I just erased the raid bios. It worked. When I boot from the card it now lists the connected drives and also shows a ' No bios found' message.

One annoyance is the PCI card takes 6K of conventional memory from somewhere. No drivers or tsr is loaded, Dos is just reduced to 634KB available memory in a clean boot with nothing else loaded.
Does this happen using a 'real' Promise S150 TX2PLUS card in DOS?

To test the card I used a 1TB SATA HD and created a single partition in Win10 to align the drive. Formatted in DOS using WinME's Oformat.com (allows you to use the /Q (quick) command when format.com will not.) Saves a lot of time for large drives.

Speedsys benchmark Results (1TB SATA WD BLACK DRIVE)

440BX onboard IDE (Using SATA to IDE adapter and limited the drive to 32GB to get it detected by the onboard ide)
Read - 3,904KB/S Very slow (normal speeds for PIO onboard ide under dos??)
Write - 3,746KB/S

1TB SATA drive via Promise card using SATA port
Read 63,823KB/s
Write 62,465KB/s

Overnight I left it running to copy 445GB of files to another directory in DOS7.1, The next day I ran an MD5 checksum to compared the files, 100% match, so no data corruption above 137 GB.
Average speed was 2.3 GB/min in DOS.

Hey AvalonH, could you share what flash tool you used to erase the raid bios on this card? and some info on how to do it? thanks.

AvalonH wrote on 2019-07-08, 18:16:

After messing around I now have it working. The official Promise bios flasher tools wouldn't flash the card so I just erased the […]
Show full quote

After messing around I now have it working.
The official Promise bios flasher tools wouldn't flash the card so I just erased the raid bios. It worked. When I boot from the card it now lists the connected drives and also shows a ' No bios found' message.

One annoyance is the PCI card takes 6K of conventional memory from somewhere. No drivers or tsr is loaded, Dos is just reduced to 634KB available memory in a clean boot with nothing else loaded.
Does this happen using a 'real' Promise S150 TX2PLUS card in DOS?

To test the card I used a 1TB SATA HD and created a single partition in Win10 to align the drive. Formatted in DOS using WinME's Oformat.com (allows you to use the /Q (quick) command when format.com will not.) Saves a lot of time for large drives.

Speedsys benchmark Results (1TB SATA WD BLACK DRIVE)

440BX onboard IDE (Using SATA to IDE adapter and limited the drive to 32GB to get it detected by the onboard ide)
Read - 3,904KB/S Very slow (normal speeds for PIO onboard ide under dos??)
Write - 3,746KB/S

1TB SATA drive via Promise card using SATA port
Read 63,823KB/s
Write 62,465KB/s

Overnight I left it running to copy 445GB of files to another directory in DOS7.1, The next day I ran an MD5 checksum to compared the files, 100% match, so no data corruption above 137 GB.
Average speed was 2.3 GB/min in DOS.

Just wanted to update that I found a similar but not identical looking Promise card which works on my SS7 motherboard. The manufacturer's old site had drivers for this card with this packaging, it identifies as InnoSupply PC17, but is in fact a Promise SATA150 TX2plus card as it appears in the BIOS/Device Manager, provided drivers is version 1.00.0.27. Have attached the drivers here since the InnoSupply site has been Wordpressed, and old files seem gone. I assume Promise official drivers should also work but I didn't try looking for them.

1**********************************************
2*                                            *
3* Promise SATA150 TX Series Driver Diskette  *
4*                                            *
5**********************************************
6
7
8====================
9Contents on the disk
10====================
11README   TXT            This readme file
12ULSATA                  Microsoft Windows miniport disk label file
13TXTSETUP OEM            Microsoft Windows miniport text mode setup file
14
15WIN2003      <DIR>
16  ULSATA   SYS          Microsoft Windows2003 miniport driver
17  PTIPBM   DLL          Promise Windows2003 set Pbm dynamic link library
18  ULSATA   INF          Microsoft Windows miniport setup file
19
20WINXP        <DIR>
21  ULSATA   SYS          Microsoft WindowsXP miniport driver
22  PTIPBM   DLL          Promise WindowsXP set Pbm dynamic link library
23  ULSATA   INF          Microsoft Windows miniport setup file
24
25WIN2000        <DIR>
26  ULSATA   SYS          Microsoft Windows2000 miniport driver
27  PTIPBM   DLL          Promise Windows2000 Set Pbm dynamic link library
28  ULSATA   INF          Microsoft Windows miniport setup file
29
30WIN98-ME       <DIR>
31  ULSATA   MPD          Microsoft Windows98-ME miniport driver
32  ULSATA   INF          Microsoft Windows miniport setup file
33  PTISTP   DLL          Advanced INF file format support file
34  PU66VSD  VXD          Promise power management driver
35  SMARTVSD VXD          Promise S.M.A.R.T. driver
36  ULSAVSD  VXD		Promise IOCTL driver
37
38NT4            <DIR>
39  ULSATA   SYS          Microsoft WindowsNT miniport driver file
40  PTIPBM   EXE          Promise WindowsNT Set Pbm execution file
41  ULSATA   INF          Microsoft Windows miniport setup file
42
43================
44Software Version
45================
46Microsoft WindowsNT miniport driver     1.00.0.27
47Microsoft Windows2000 miniport driver   1.00.0.27
48Microsoft Windows98-ME miniport driver  1.00.0.27
49Microsoft WindowsXP miniport driver  	1.00.0.27
50Microsoft Windows2003 miniport driver  	1.00.0.27

svfn, Avalon,

Could I get the flasher tool please. I have come into possession of this same card and would like to flash it into jbod mode.

I could not find the flasher tool unfortunately.

aureal wrote on 2022-05-31, 03:36:

svfn, Avalon,

Could I get the flasher tool please. I have come into possession of this same card and would like to flash it into jbod mode.

hello,

oeuvre wrote on 2019-07-06, 12:07:

Looks like you got a card that isn't what it was... promised to be.

I have been working with this card lately and I can assure you, that this Promise card delivers exactly what it had promised 😉

I have two cards - genuine Promise Fasttrak S150 TX2 with PDC20371 chip and Chinese clone based on PDC20378 chip. These cards behave exactly the same - with hard-drive connected they hang during POST with error message stating that no array is defined. You need to configure an array to use a single drive, but then you won't be able to use this drive / image taken from this drive using different controller.

First and foremost, AvalonH probably used pflash tool that is distributed by Promise inside their BIOS packages. It has an /e switch for erasing the flash on a card. I was not able to use it. For both cards I own there was an message, that command suceeded, but apparently it did nothing. Probably it's caused by my motherboard that has some kind of BIOS flashing protection that cannot be disabled. I could have used a different motherboard, but I wanted to explore different approach.

As some of you may have noticed, PDC20378 was only officially released on Asus motherboards as integrated SATA controller. Genuine Promise SATA 150 TX2 Plus used PDC20375 while Fasttrak S150 TX2 used PDC20371.

On my chinese card I have desoldered the BIOS chip using the heatgun and put PLCC socket instead for easy external BIOS flashing (I used TL866II). I tried to flash latest BIOS intended for Promise SATA S150 TX2 from Promise website, but the card would not show up during the POST. Probably the BIOS is tied with specific PCI device identifier and it will not POST on a different card, so I tried something different. I looked into the Asus PC-DL BIOS and I have extracted Promise BIOS(es) out of it. It's plural, because there are two modules for Promise called "SATA378" and "RAID378". Probably in the motherboard BIOS there is a setting that could be used for switching between IDE and RAID modes. But guess what - the dump of Chinese Promise BIOS chip is 1:1 exactly the same as the RAID378 module exctracted from Asus motherboard! I believe that what Chinese wizards did with these cards, was that they somehow obtained PDC20378 chips that were intended for Asus motherboars and they just built cards around them.

Anyhow, I just flashed "SATA378" on the BIOS chip, I have been greeted by "SATA378 TX2plus(tm) BIOS Version 1.00.0.33" POST message and my SSD got detected properly. Success! ...and quite interesting mention of TX2plus. The same must have existed on Asus motherboards.

Another part of the story was to get w98 driver for these cards. Seems that Asus has drivers for this controller running in RAID mode only on their website and Promise didn't released any card with PDC20378 chip, so there are no drivers for it. The solution was to just force installation of Promise SATA S150 TX2plus drivers. The Windows complains about these drivers not being intended for this card, but after confirmation everything seems to be working correctly. This could probably be resolved by easy .inf modification, but I didn't bothered with that.

In the attachments you can find some pictures and "PROMISE.zip" which contains bioses, drivers and screenshot proof that card works properly under Windows 98. Here is a directory listing:

1PROMISE/bioses 
2     # contains CHINESE_PROMISE.BIN which is dumped from my chinese card and FASTTRAK.BIN which is dumped from my Promise Fasttrak S150 TX2 card
3PROMISE/bioses/1_FastTrak_S150_TX2plus_BIOS_1.00.0.37 
4     # latest BIOS for FastTrak S150 TX2plus from Promise website (which is a lot older than the one I dumped from my card)
5PROMISE/bioses/SATA150_TX2plus_BIOS_v1.00.0.33 
6     # latest BIOS for SATA 150 TX2 from Promise website
7PROMISE/bioses/asus-pc-dl 
8     # contains RAID378.bin and SATA378.bin extracted from Asus PC-DL bios that could be used for flashing chinese PDC20378 cards
9PROMISE/drivers/378RAID100130 
10     # IDE driver from Asus PC-DL support page (in reality it's just older version of the same driver mentioned below)
11PROMISE/drivers/378raid_100137 
12     # RAID driver from Asus PC-DL support page 
13PROMISE/drivers/2_SATA150+TX+Series+Driver+v1.00.0.16 
14     # latest SATA 150 TX2 driver from Promise website that can be forced to be used with chinese PDC20378 flashed with SATA378 BIOS.

PS: MAYBE someone will be able to flash his card using Uniflash with -pcirom and -force parameters, but I was unable to do it as chip used on my card is not supported by Uniflash. That would be the cleanest solution that would not involve soldering the card.
PPS: 376 and 378 chips seem to be the same. I have no way of testing it, but everything I wrote should work just fine with cards equipped with PDC20376 chip. As for PDC20375 which svfn card uses, it is strange - it should have regular SATA bios as it is the same chip as the one used on genuine Promise SATA 150 TX2 card. It would be interesting to check the dump from this card.

Hello,

I am now also an owner of this card.
I am sharing the Driver CD content and Installation Guide (inside the Setup directory).