IC7-MAX3 with SCSI Boot

[c52k]

Hi folks,

i just got this board and am having a nightmare of a time getting it to boot with my SCSI drive. I keep getting the No Bootable device found.

I've tried every option in the BIOS under boot order. There is NO SCSI option in there, however there is an option for Enable Other Boot which is described to enable another form of boot device, there's a setting for SATA , SATA Raid or PCI. I chose PCI since my SCSI card is on the PCI bus.

Nothing seems to work. Has anyone been able to get this board to boot with a SCSI drive ?

The SCSI card i'm using is an Adaptect 39320R.

PS. The system was a fully functional system. The only thing i swapped out was the Motherboard from a GA-8INXP to this ABICT IC7-MAX3.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Peter]

Now does the Adaptec card's own BIOS show up at all? If it does, enter its setup and configure your SCSI stuff first. If it doesn't show up at all, then you need to sort out why not.

 

[c52k]

Adaptec BIOS shows up just fine.

It was already configured prior to switching MB's but when things weren't working i went back in to double check and everything was still configured properly. I tried a few changes in the SCSI BIOS settings but nothing worked.

I've moved the SCSI card in to different PCI slots , that didn't help.
Channel A on the SCSI card is set to use IRQ 15, the on board USB 2.0 controller is set to use 15 also so for now i've disabled the on board USB 2.0 controller (i can always move it to a different IRQ later).

So at the end of the POST session where it lists all the devices and IRQ's i can see both Channel A and B of my SCSI adapter show up as Mass Storage Controller IRQ 11 and 15 , there are no conflicts there but it just won't boot.

I guess it's possible my boot drive got hosed somehow but I really don't think that's the case. I'm just curious that since in the BIOS settings for Boot Device there is no specific option for SCSI i wonder if this board doesn't support SCSI boot devices ?!?

 

[Thor86]

The mother board bios should have a boot order sequence setting. Make sure your SCSI is first over IDE and Harddrives are selected as bootable, along with floppy, cdrom, etc. I'm not sure exactly where in the bios this would be for the MAX3, but I'm pretty sure it's in there.

 

[Peter]

Forget the IRQs thing. It's all PCI, IRQs are shareable there. (And they aren't even used yet during the phase you're wrestling in.)

Does the SCSI BIOS detect the drives? And if so, and if your system's BIOS is BBS enabled, do the drives' names show up in the system BIOS boot drive selection? If it isn't, you may need to configure the SCSI BIOS to use the legacy "Int 19h capture" method for boot drive installation.

(If all else fails, my default recommendation is "return Adaptec, get Tekram or LSI".)

 

[c52k]

well the way the MAX3 does it, there is no option to specify SCSI. There is this option to "Enable other boot devices" or something like that.

Basically there is a "other boot device" option you can specify SATA, or PCI. The PCI option would be the equivalent to SCSI since that's where the SCSI adapter is.

You have 3 boot order options, then a 4th option to enable or disable additional boot devices. I've tried disabling all 3 of the first 3 boot devices so it will go straight to "additional boot device" which is set to PCI.

Still no luck.

I talked to ABIT support just now, not the most helpful unfortunately. Basically didn't tell me anything i didn't know already. Bottom line is they claim this is not a MB problem since the SCSI card is operational and posting to the MB BIOS is working fine. Told me to go call adaptec. While i agree this is a possibility i'm not sure it's the problem.

They also said there has been no official testing with SCSI on this board, the additional PCI boot option is not limited to just SCSI.
So again, no real help there.

 

[Thor86]

Wow, that's a lot of BS Abit was shovelling your way.

I would try and enable the other boot device options and set them to PCI, but if you have already done that, then I'm just as lost as you are. What bios version are you using? Try the latest version, I think 1.3 for the MAX3. I ran my Adaptec 29160 on my IC-7 with no problems.