Need help with IDE and SATA raid boot up order

[HumblePie]

Posted this in the motherboard section but I really need help with this and thought some looking here might be able to help that don't read the motherboard section:


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.

 

[boomerang]

Without a Serial ATA option provided in the boot order, I think you are screwed. To the BIOS, the IDE cards are SCSI devices.

Unless there is an updated BIOS, which I'm pretty sure there is not, your only hope would be a motherboard with a Serial ATA option.

I hope somone jumps in and proves me wrong for your sake.

 

[imported_Bunter]

Somebody within the last month or so was having a similar problem, although between the onboard SATA and an IDE card. It may well have been with a different motherboard (although I thought it was an ASUS model). I could not find it searching on SCSI or "boot order" in General, Tech Support, Motherboards or OSs.

Boomerang is right. The motherboard calls everything that is not part of itself (including the SATA controller, which it sees as being some foreign device) as SCSI in the boot order. It won't do anything more to establish a priority within multiple devices in that category.

The SATA BIOS on the A7N8X series does not get involved in its priority with other "SCSI" devices. That leaves the only possibility being the BIOS on the IDE cards. If they don't have some setting to establish a boot priority, I think you are screwed.

They'll always boot in whatever order they boot.

Afraid that's the best I can offer, and it is probably not what you want to hear. Like Boomerang, I hope somebody jumps in and has some other words of wisdom.

 

[HumblePie]

Yah, I was afraid of that.. Everything is listed as SCSI. My mobo treats my onboard sata device exactly like the pci ide raid cards I have. Problem is, it treats the onboard sata raid controller as the bottom of the boot up pecking order compared to anything in the PCI slots... grrr. Even the normal IDE channel is lower for some reason. It's real wierd. At least the pecking order for booting up off the PCI slots is in the direct order you install them from top to bottom.

Guess the only options I have is

a) not use my IDE drives in raid configuration (which means I have extra cards now grr..)

or

b) buy PCI sata raid card and install that at the top PCI slot to get my sata drives to boot first (which means I've wasted that aspect of my motherboard and I have to spend MORE money).

Either option doesn't look good.