Here's a photo of the 64-bit RAIDport III card I'm refering to. I know it looks like a PCI-X card, but it isn't.

Boot screen showing that the card is activated with two SCSI drives. They are in a stripe array.

Boot screen showing the SCSI controller (Adaptec 19160) and HDD (Seagate 68 GB) being used to boot. The AIC-7880 is only for the SCSI HDD.

If I enter the ARO-1130U2's BIOS and disable Array1000 BIOS, I am able to boot Win98SE, but this is the same thing as not having the RAID hard drives plugged in.

I've tried leaving the ARO-1130U2's BIOS enabled, but in Win98SE disable the Array 1000U2 PCI RAID Controller and the Adaptec Memory Controller / XOR Engine, but Win98SE still hangs on boot.

I noticed that the AIC-7880 SCSI controller, which contains only the DVD-ROM, is using the same IRQ 5 as the ARO-1130U2 RAID controller. I tried setting the AIC-7880 to disabled in Win98 and low and behold, I can boot Win98SE with the Array active. Seems odd that the Dell BIOS would be setting these two devices to the same IRQ when IRQ 15 is free. Unfortunately there is no option to disable LPT (IRQ 7). So I have disabled the AIC-7880 in the Dell BIOS and I may need to run the DVD-ROM off another PCI card. Makes for a less pretty setup.

I'm still left wondering if using the W2K driver for the RAID controller in Win98SE is going to cause problems down the road. I don't understand how Windows 98SE would let me use a W2K driver - aren't they completely different animals?

EDIT: I suspect the W2K driver isn't working all that well in Win98SE. It took an unnaturally long duration of time to transfer 29 MB of files from the HDD on the U160 SCSI controller to the HDD array on the ARO-1130U2. It was in the range of 3 minutes. I can transfer the same files from the HDD on the U160 controller to another folder on the U160 HDD and it is instantaneous.

EDIT2: Yep, the Array drive D: is using MS-DOS compatibility mode.

EDIT3: This isn't the most ideal solution, but this is what I'm planning on doing. Disable the AIC-7880 in BIOS. This should eliminate the IRQ conflict in Win98SE. I will only be able to use the ARO-1130U2 RAID controller with NT4, W2K, W2K3, and XP. To keep Win98SE installed on this system, I will need to install a PCI Adaptec 2940U2W card to use just with Win98SE and have a 3rd hard drive connected to this controller. I will also connect the SCSI DVD-ROM drive to the PCI 2940U2W. The ARO RAID controller will contain the NT-based boot loader and I will need to create a boot sector image of the Win98SE-only HDD so that it can boot. It's a lot of mickey mousing just to use the ARO RAID controller.

Have a similar issue with AMI MegaRAID 200, poor Win9x support though there are good DOS, NT, W2K, etc drivers....

It’s really too bad they didn’t think more about multi-boot workstations for this RAID card. I recall some of my RAID systems have working Win9x drivers.

feipoa wrote on 2020-04-23, 21:30:

It’s really too bad they didn’t think more about multi-boot workstations for this RAID card. I recall some of my RAID systems have working Win9x drivers.

Have you pulled the sticker to see what exact chip is on the controller card ? It could help ! Possible to find a chip specific Win9x driver. With my MegaRaid I can use it under Win9x using the native chip (53c895) driver. It just does not like W9x if I have a raid setup and boot Win9x from it's RAID but works fine if the W9x is on a separate single drive array. The MegaRaid can do Single plus RAID Levels 0, 1, 3, 5, 10, 30 &50.

I haven't pulled the sticker, but didn't Adaptec make their own ASIC chips on these SCSI and SCSI RAID cards?

I don't quite follow what you said. Are you saying that Win9x works fine and boots with the MegaRAID if the array consists of just one HDD? Would that even be an array in such a case? Is it possible to create an array with one HDD? I have never tried to create a SCSI or IDE array with just one HDD before.

Yes I can have an array and add a single drive as a one drive element that is not part of the full array, makes it a single drive (like adding a CDROM) attached to same controller and not impacted by the RAID portion. The controller I have was used typically in dells and gateways, often called a "PERC" on those systems. Probably very different from yours but was thinking about how you could add a drive and then use the core drivers in W9x if you could set a single drive array.

If I add a single HDD to the RAID controller, won't it still be using the ARO-1130U2 drivers, not the AIC-7890 drivers? Or is it using the AIC-7890 drivers?

feipoa wrote on 2020-04-25, 02:56:

If I add a single HDD to the RAID controller, won't it still be using the ARO-1130U2 drivers, not the AIC-7890 drivers? Or is it using the AIC-7890 drivers?

In my case it uses the 53c895 driver in win9x, not the PERC MegaRaid driver. Am guessing it should use the AIC-7890 driver but you still need to know the chip under that label as it could alter the actual driver needed to avoid driver/resource conflicts. Do you have onboard IDE that is using IRQ14 and 15 ? Just curious
edit: fixed my tired brain cannot think proper syndrom part... and added something

Hey maybe the issue is trying to use too many Adaptec controllers on same board, creating driver conflicts. Have you tried using a diff scsi controller for the lessor devices ?
Just a thought...

The way I have it setup now is to use a separate PCI Adaptec SCSI card for the DVD-ROM and the Win98SE hard drive. The AIC-7880 is normally used for the SCSI CD drive, but it always seems to use the same IRQ as the ARO-1130U2 and Win98SE wouldn't boot with it like this. W2K and XP OK with this though.

Internal IDE is disabled, but it is a single port only and uses IRQ 14 typically. IRQ 15 is free.

I'll have to see what happens when a single HDD on the RAID card. But even if it works, I still need another PCI card to run the SCSI DVD-ROM, either that, or find a colour matching IDE DVD-ROM. A nice idea in theory, but I like my cases to have well matching external devices and there are hundreds of shades of beige.

I removed the sticker labels and attached is a photo of the ASIC chip that is on the Adaptec ARO-1130xA-C (aka ARO-1130U2). The part number is AIC-7815G. Now that we know this, how do we obtain a Win9x driver for it?

EDIT: Looks like you can create a RAID 0 array with just a single HDD. Learned something new here. It also looks like you can connect the HDD onto the same cable as a RAID but not part of the array and Windows will still be able to use the HDD. Is there any tangible benefit to this, like the hard drives can use the DRAM cache on the RAID controller?

Unfortunately, it looks like the stand-alone HDD on the RAID controller still uses the ARO-1130U2 drivers and is in compatibility mode.

Yes if you used the Win9x drive as a single it would get a speed boost from the cache. I found a driver disk (from Asus P2B-LS) that has a Win9x driver for AIC-7890, could not find anything for 7815. It lists these Device ID's:

PCI\VEN_9004&DEV_7890.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AIC-7890 based PCI SCSI Controller" PCI\VEN_9004&DEV_7891.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AIC-789x […]
Show full quote

PCI\VEN_9004&DEV_7890.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AIC-7890 based PCI SCSI Controller"
PCI\VEN_9004&DEV_7891.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AIC-789x based PCI SCSI Controller"
PCI\VEN_9004&DEV_7892.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AIC-789x based PCI SCSI Controller"
;PCI\VEN_9004&DEV_7893.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AIC-789x based PCI SCSI Controller"
PCI\VEN_9004&DEV_7894.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AIC-789x based PCI SCSI Controller"
PCI\VEN_9004&DEV_7895.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AHA-2940U/UW Dual/AHA-394xAU/AUW/AUWD PCI SCSI Controller"
PCI\VEN_9004&DEV_7896.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AIC-789x based PCI SCSI Controller"
PCI\VEN_9004&DEV_7897.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AIC-789x based PCI SCSI Controller"

;New for Bayonet
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0010.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AHA-2940U2W/U2B /AHA-2950U2W PCI Ultra2 SCSI Controller"
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0020.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AIC-789x based PCI SCSI Controller"
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_0030.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AIC-789x based PCI SCSI Controller"
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_001F.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AIC-789x based PCI Ultra2 SCSI Controller"
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_002F.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AIC-789x based PCI SCSI Controller"
PCI\VEN_9005&DEV_003F.DeviceDesc="Adaptec AIC-789x based PCI SCSI Controller"

If one of those matches your Dev ID in Win9x you should try the attached, it may or may not help.

You probably already tried that, but how about googling the PCI device ID in the same format as it would appear in a Windows 9x .inf .

darry wrote on 2020-04-25, 16:01:

You probably already tried that, but how about googling the PCI device ID in the same format as it would appear in a Windows 9x .inf .

Good thought ! There may be other drivers that the same Dev ID shows up, hopefully one for Win98.

AIC-7890 drivers for w9x are pretty common, but seems the RAID is another beast. How do I locate the device ID for the RAID controller? Perhaps from the W2K driver info file?

feipoa wrote on 2020-04-25, 22:31:

AIC-7890 drivers for w9x are pretty common, but seems the RAID is another beast. How do I locate the device ID for the RAID controller? Perhaps from the W2K driver info file?

Wow brain cramp, I know under XP you just look at the Details tab in Device Manager, then click down to Device ID and it shows. Think in Win9x you have to check the registry in HKLM\ENUM\PCI or use a third party tool like Everest, Unknown Devices (http://halfdone.com/ukd/)
Yes you could check the W2k file but it would be better to get the actual ones your machine see's and not what the drivers say.

Horun wrote on 2020-04-26, 01:03:

feipoa wrote on 2020-04-25, 22:31:

AIC-7890 drivers for w9x are pretty common, but seems the RAID is another beast. How do I locate the device ID for the RAID controller? Perhaps from the W2K driver info file?

Wow brain cramp, I know under XP you just look at the Details tab in Device Manager, then click down to Device ID and it shows. Think in Win9x you have to check the registry in HKLM\ENUM\PCI or use a third party tool like Everest, Unknown Devices (http://halfdone.com/ukd/)
Yes you could check the W2k file but it would be better to get the actual ones your machine see's and not what the drivers say.

From the W2k inf : VEN_9004&DEV_7815
Otherwise, under Windows 9x, you can use pcilist.exe : https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/pci_list.html

I googled a bit already but found nothing useful .

Windows 98 SE was never a workstation OS (NT and 2000 were) and was limited to 127GB partitions and FAT32, so a multi-drive RAID hardware RAID controller was probably not something for which Adaptec thought they needed Win 9x drivers for .

None of this class of Adaptec card offers Win9x / ME driver support, and the only function of the 7815 (and 7810 before it) is to offload RAID processing. Even cards with a dedicated SCSI chip like the AAA-131U2 (AIC-7890 + AIC-7815) don't offer support.

Adaptec Support Knowledgebase

The Adaptec AAA, ARO, and AHA-3985 series of controllers are not supported and drivers are not available for Windows Millennium (ME), 95 or 98.

Why not use HWiNFO32 to get the ID ?

I thought it would be neat to upgrade the memory on the ARO-1130 RAID controller from 16 MB to the maximum amount of 64 MB. According to the Adaptec website, https://storage.microsemi.com/en-us/support/_ … rop/u2_dimm.htm , "most other popular non-buffered, 60ns (or faster), 3.3V, 168-Pin EDO DIMMs should work".

I tried 64 MB and 128 MB EDO DIMMs but the controller complains about unknown DRAM.

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Perhaps only single-sided EDO DIMMs work? The original 16 MB DIMM is single-sided, while the 64 MB and 128 MB DIMMs I tried are double-sided.