HELP!: Problems setting up Promise Ultra 100 IDE controller

[Madcowz]

I hooked everything up, put my hard drive on IDE channel 1 on the Promise controller and left my DVD-ROM on the onboard IDE secondary master channel. When I start up it will detect my DVD-ROM and then go into the Ultra 100 bios and detect my hard drive. Then the screen changes again and I get the error, "system disk invalid, please insert another disk." I think my system is trying to boot from the DVD-ROM, but how can I fix this? I'm thinking I might have to move my DVD-ROM to the Promise IDE channel 2 and have nothing onboard, but this would be inconvient, and I'd rather keep it on the motherboard... even then it STILL might not work. Any ideas, suggestions?

 

[billyjak]

Try unchecking boot to CDRom in bios.

 

[Madcowz]

there is no boot to CD-ROM setting my my CUSL2 bios.

 

[Trashman]

did ya set your BIOS to boot SCSI, this is often an overlooked task.

 

[Madcowz]

my bios doesn't even have that option. But anyways...
Actually it's not my DVD-ROM that's causing the trouble b/c I tried putting it on the 2nd IDE channel on the Promise card and I still get the same error,
"Disk Boot failure, please insert a system disk and press enter"
Then I took off the DVD-ROM alltogether and got the same results... What the heck is going on, I have the Ultra 100 drivers installed already too and they are reporting no errors in the device manager.

 

[Trashman]

Dude...ya gotta set your BIOS to Boot to SCSI first...your bios probably goes like this:
1: Removeable Device
2: IDE hard drive
3: Atapi CD-Rom
4: Other..........in here ya need to select SCSI Boot device.

Ya probably should disable #2 in that list.

 

[Madcowz]

those settings in BIOS only apply to devices on the motherboard. The choice of hard drive or CD-ROM won't be there if I don't have them attached onboard (and instead on the promise controller).

 

[Trashman]

True.........but ya gotta let your MOBO know where your devices are if your not using the devices onboard.

 

[Trashman]

by selecting Boot to SCSI device....it'll look at the controller card and say hey....there's that hard drive.

 

[AngelOfDeath]

Madcows: Do the following...and believe me it should work.

-Enter the BIOS
-Go to the menu 'PCI Configuration'
-Set the 'SYMBIOS SCSI' to 'AUTO'
-Go to the 'BOOT' menu
-Disable 'Removable Device', 'IDE Hardrive', 'Atapi CD-rom'
-Choose the 'Other Boot device' and set that to 'SCSI Boot'
-Save and exit

Now you should be up and running

AoD