Promise Technology 66 Pro - Manual (Page 141)

SuperTrak66™ User's Manual Appendix C
C-5
Q: How can I be sure that write-back cache has flushed before I reboot
after partitioning and formatting an array?
A: A cache flush is always triggered immediately following any write from the int
13h BIOS. This level of array support is what FDISK and FORMAT use to
access the drive from MSDOS. With no delay in the write operation, there is no
cached data waiting to be written. If you are running from NT or other O/S, as
usual, make sure to shut down NT properly so that the O/S can trigger and
flush the cache as necessary. NOTE: powering off before a proper shutdown is
complete may result in the loss of unwritten data in cache, possibly causing
problems in a subsequent boot or access to the data which was unwritten.
Q: Why can’t I see the drives on the SuperTrak66 under FDISK?
A: If you have not created an array, the physical drive(s) attached to the
SuperTrak66 card will not be recognized by the operating system. The
SuperTrak66 controller is dedicated to RAID array management and does not
provide any means of addressing individual hard drives through the int 13h
interface used by FDISK. In order to access drives on the SuperTrak66 from
MSDOS at all, you must first create a RAID array.
Q: Why can’t I see the array I just created with SuperCheck under the NT
Disk Administrator?
A: Since Windows NT does not yet support any method of dynamically adding
and/or removing logical devices to/from the system, you must restart NT. The
next boot will show the new array under Disk Administrator.