Readme file for HPT370/370A/372 ATA RAID Controller
BIOS, Device Drivers and RAID Management Software
Copyright (C) HighPoint Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Last updated on Feb 2, 2002
Please review this file for important information about compatibility issues and
differences in operation that were discovered after our product manuals were
created. In case of conflict among various parts of the documentation set, this
file contains the most current information.
Note: The latest firmware and product documentation will be available for
download at http://www.highpoint-tech.com
This file is divided into the following major sections:
1. Software Version
2. Files Listing
3. Revision History
4. BIOS Update
5. Known Problems
1. Software Version
====================
BIOS version: v2.31
Driver version: v2.31
ATA RAID Management Software version: v2.31
Operating Systems:
Windows 98/ME
Windows NT 4.0
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Version Compatibility:
Driver v2.31 can be used with GUI v2.1/v2.2 and BIOS v2.1/v2.2
if you do not use any of the following features:
1. Larger block size (above 64K)
2. Multi-controller support
Otherwise, you must use GUI v2.3 and BIOS v2.3 or later.
2. Files Listing
=================
Readme.txt This file
BIOS
|_ load.exe BIOS loading utility
\_ bios372.231 HPT370/372 controller BIOS
Drivers Driver disk
|- win98_me Windows 98/ME driver
| |_ hpt3xx.inf
| |_ hpt3xx.mpd
| |_ hptpwr.vxd
| \_ hptwrap.vxd
|- win_nt Windows NT 4.0 driver
| |_ hpt3xx.inf
| \_ hpt3xx.sys
|- win_2k Windows 2000 driver
| |_ hpt3xx.inf
| |_ hpt3xx.cat
| |_ hpt3xx.sys
| \_ hptpro.sys
|- win_xp Windows XP driver
| |_ hpt3xx.inf
| |_ hpt3xx.cat
| |_ hpt3xx.sys
| \_ hptpro.sys
|- disk1 Driver disk label
\_ txtsetup.oem Windows NT/2k/XP setup file
3. Revision History
====================
v2.31 01/09/2002
* Performance improved
* Fix BIOS compatibility issue with Adaptec SCSI
* Show capacity by 1G=1,000,000,000 Bytes
* Fix BIOS bug "drive capacity incorrect after deleting a broken array"
v2.3 12/20/2001
* Add support for stripe size 128K-2M
* Support multi controller
* Modify driver for HPT370/370A compatibility
* Fix reading ATA/133 disk error when PCI clock is lower than 33MHz
* Fix compatibility problem with Intel IAA driver under Windows ME
* Fix BIOS compatibility issue with MSI845 mainboard
v2.2 12/08/2001
* Performance improved
* Fix GUI re-open bug when rebuilding an array
v2.1 11/15/2001
* Add 48bit LBA (Big Drive) support
* Fix BIOS display problem on S3 display adapter
* Fix BIOS BBS support
* Fix Windows ME hibernating problem
4. BIOS Update
===============
To update BIOS for onboard HPT370/370A/372 controller, please refer to your
mainboard manual or contact the hardware vendor for updating BIOS.
To update BIOS for HPT370/370A/372 adapter, you can use HighPoint BIOS loading
utility.
* Notes for BIOS update from v2.0.xxxx on adapters with auto-load enabled
If your HPT370/370A adapter has auto-load feature enabled, PCI configuration
header may change after you update BIOS. This will cause Windows 2000/XP
unable to boot from the controller. To avoid this problem, you must use load
utility v2.1.12.22 or later and specify the following parameters to update
BIOS:
load bios372.231 /e 408=1800003,42c=51103
5. Known Problems
==================
* Install OS to devices attached to HPT370/370A/372 controller
Before installing OS to devices attached to HPT370/370A/372 controller, you must
remove the drives connected to other controllers from your system temporarily.
After OS installation complete, you can put them back.
* Windows XP upgrade installation
When doing an upgrade installation of Windows XP with HPT370/370A/372 controller,
Windows XP will use HPT370 driver in its driver package and prevent user to
specify a new driver. To solve this problem you can do the upgrade as below:
1. Run XP upgrade program in a running system.
2. When setup finished copying files and ask reboot, DO NOT reboot.
3. Open WinXP temporary installation folder ($WIN_NT$.~BT) and search for
txtsetup.sif file.
4. Open txtsetup.sif with Notepad, remove the line "hpt3xx=hpt3xx.sys,4"
under section [scsi.load] by adding a semicolon before that line.
5. Save the file and reboot.
6. Start XP setup as normal. When setup prompt "Press F6 to add SCSI driver",
press F6 and specify the new driver to be loaded.
7. During text-mode setup, Windows XP may still copy the built-in HPT370 driver
to the final Windows installation's System32\Drivers directory. To use the
new driver, you must replace the old one before you continue into graphic-mode
setup. This can be done by booting from a DOS floppy if you are using FAT
or FAT32 file system; if you use NTFS file system, you have to use some
other method to replace the built-in driver.
There are more information about this issue on Microsoft support site:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q225125
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q220845
* Moving disks to other IDE controllers
When you want to use disks previously attached to HPT370/370A/372 controller on
other IDE controllers, please first delete any array information on the
disks. Otherwise your data may be lost when you want to put it back later.
* Rescaning disks
There is a limitation for the refresh function in RAID Management Software.
If you remove a disk from the controller but the software does not notice this
event, it is also unable to notice the event when you plug another disk back
to that location. You must force a refresh action before changing the disk.
* Problem on two disks with same signature under Windows 98/ME
If you break a RAID 1 array into two single disks without destroying data and
use both of them under Windows 98/ME, Windows will behave abnormally since
there are two volumes with same Windows signature. To solve the problem, boot
into MS-DOS mode and run "fdisk /mbr".
Download Driver Pack
After your driver has been downloaded, follow these simple steps to install it.
Expand the archive file (if the download file is in zip or rar format).
If the expanded file has an .exe extension, double click it and follow the installation instructions.
Otherwise, open Device Manager by right-clicking the Start menu and selecting Device Manager.
Find the device and model you want to update in the device list.
Double-click on it to open the Properties dialog box.
From the Properties dialog box, select the Driver tab.
Click the Update Driver button, then follow the instructions.
Very important: You must reboot your system to ensure that any driver updates have taken effect.
For more help, visit our Driver Support section for step-by-step videos on how to install drivers for every file type.