Have you tried...

Have you considered my suggestion for chainloading from the Windows bootloader? I would be interested in finding out if it works.

What happens when you press F2 when the Promise card shows F1/F2? Is there nothing that could save you that F1 keystroke at every boot?

Notice how the problem has been reduced to chasing the details.

In all, well done.

IFunny; I think the Windows driver refuses to use it as anything but RAID, and it's slow at boot. Well, my mistake for ever getting a Promise product to begin with, won't make that mistake again. Glad you got it working..

I'm new to the world of linux, bootloaders, and dual-booting. Also this is my main system, so I'm hesitant to experiment for the sake of knowledge only.

Also I view Windows as a sinking ship to be evacuated and abandoned. When I'm in Linux I access files that I created in Windows, but not the other way around. I figure if Windows gets infected with a virus that tampers with Linux filesystem files, I have a layer of protection because Windows doesn't have the drivers to work with the RAID card and thus the attached linux drive.

The only little annoyance, -[one more annoyance among the many in Windows]- is that when I boot up XP it dutifully informs me that it has detected new hardware and can attempt to find drivers for it. I want to tell it "Quit asking me that, I barely trust you with the drive your installed on! You don't know this because I have to trick you with a modified GRUB entry, but you're not the primary drive/OS in this system. So learn your role!"

~

I tried pressing F2 and it takes me to the (motherboard) BIOS setup. Right after it scans the drives and displays the array, it briefly displays "press Ctrl+F to enter (FastTrak setup)". Then it displays the F1/F2 choice.

I entered the card's setup and tried redefining the array, but the array is -apparently- in the only configuration it can possibly be in, given that I have a single drive connected.

I also looked for an 'options' or 'settings' menu (to turn the F1-to-continue message off). There weren't any such options.

Yeah thats pretty much how I feel about it. It occured to me that I have to be present to enter my account name and password at the login screen, so pressing F1 is just an additional step. Its not like I'm sending a 'wake on LAN' command through a cell phone on the way home or anything. I walk over and press the power button, so whats one more button right? Once F1 is pressed it quickly goes to GRUB.

I actually have the manual for this card. Its 89 pages and I figured A)I don't have any experience with configuring RAID adapters, and B) why read this manual when most of the info will be about features I won't be using? When I looked through the manual today, there's NO information about single-drive setups (aka using the card as an IDE adapter). So its funny how finding information on attaching a single drive is harder than finding info about the relatively complex RAID functions.

I guess the team at Promise couldn't fathom that someone might use their wonderful product to add a single drive to their system.

Yep its working, so I'm happy. The important thing is the icon at the lower left of my posts went from a window pane to a Ubuntu symbol. :)