Asus a7n8xe dlx - boot order problems

[HumblePie]

I finally got around to picking up a pair of 74gb raptor hard drives. I raided them in 0 and loaded the OS on them while they were the only drives in my system. After I did so, I went to install my IDE raid card that had my other drives in the system back after removing the OS from them. The problem occurs because the only thing in the boot order for the bios says SCSI. I was hoping the system would boot from the raptors which have the OS and nothing else. Instead it doesn't. It always goes for my IDE raid card first and never looks past it.

Here's what I've tried solution wise so far....

Changing the order of EVERYTHING in the bios. I figured I would try everything. Nothing worked.

Tried changing the PCI slot for the IDE raid card. Same result for all cards.

Decided to copy over the "boot up" files over to the IDE card, like NTDLR and boot.ini. I then tried to add into boot.ini a few lines to allow me to select other drives.... That was a no go. In fact, damn things hangs now so I'm in the process of removing those files. Boots still fine if I remove the ide card.

Really, I'm at my wits end. I know someone here has to have tried this. As I said, if I remove the IDE raid card I can boot just fine off the raptors even now.

Here's my complete system setup for now that is not listed in my signature.

Asus a7n8x-e deluxe mobo that is revision 2.xx with 1008 uber bios.
I have 2 different ide raid card setups. One is an adaptec card 1200a with 2x80GB western digitals. The other is a silicon0680 card with 2x250GB maxtor drives. Both are in Raid 0 setup. I also have an extra 40GB seagate with XP loaded on it as well that I can boot from.

Here's the wierd stuff I get...

If I have the raptors loaded in by themselves I boot just fine.
The western digital setup currently has the OS still on it. I can boot from that just fine or that with the maxtor setup. If I try all three together, it hangs when booting windows. If I have all three and try booting off the SINGLE IDE drive as HDD-0 it still hangs....

If I have the raptors in there and the maxtors with no boot files I can boot off the Seagate fine. IF the maxtors have any boot files, then it even hangs booting off the seagate.


There seems to me to be some sort of conflict with having an IDE raid setup WITH boot files and a SATA raid setup with BOOT files. If both have it then I hang during boot ups. If only one has it then I can boot just fine but I can't select the SATA channel first over the IDE

Please, someone has to have an answer to this.

 

[Concillian]

I believe the RAID/SCSI boot order was addressed in the most recent BIOS release (1012)

It also had new SATA drivers as I recall, though I don't use SATA, so could be mistaken...

This is the nforcershq thread for 1012:
http://www.nforcershq.com/foru...torder=asc&start=0

the uber for the deluxe is in the post at the bottom of page 3.

That download link is reported to not be working, looks like someone is mirroring the uber for the Deluxe:
http://www.nforcershq.com/foru...p?t=51516&start=15

 

[HumblePie]

cool, I'll have to try that when I get home tonight... damn work. And I stayed up to 4am this morning trying to get this working right.

 

[dickie1900]

Another problem with your boot order could be what your picking for your boot device. While I've never used the Uber 1008, I know that with the BIOS that comes with the board the boot device had to be set to SCSI for the SATA drive. Another thing I'm wondering about...is your OS installed on both the SATA and IDE drives? Your computer might be trying to figure out which one to boot from and that's causing the hang. Another thing, if you're booting from SATA drives you have to install all your SATA drivers on a floppy when you install windows, since they're not included with the OS. Something to think about.

 

[OLtimrNewbie]

Like the man says.... if you are using the onboard SATA and Raid controllers you need to load the drivers from a floppy. I think it says here; you are using PCI RAID cards. If so; WHY. ?? There is no need to use PCI RAID cards, there is a Raid controller built onto the board! I have this same board and use SATA in a RAID 1 configuration with 2 x 120 seagates. Boot order is Floppy/SCSI/CDROM ( forget the HDD0, etc)
OOPS. I just read the ? again. Seems you are trying to run different OS's on 2 or 3 different Raid packages??? Probably a driver conflict with the drivers from the IDE Raid cards and the onboard Raid drivers. Try uninstalling the drivers for the onboard and one or the other IDE raid card and see if the remaining IDE raid setup is bootable. If so; I seriously doubt you'll be able to run in the configuration you describe.