SCSI Drives question....

[EtherealDragon]

Ok, so I am helping a friend out with her computer....... The summary of what happened is that her motherboard and/or CPU fried..... So, we replaced them (from P4 to AMD Socket 754).

Upon initial boot after the hardware swap, windows was throwing a BSOD while loading (expected this)... Tried to re-install the OS, and it was being a pain, and wouldn't install correctly. I suspect that the motherboard isn't picking up the SCSI card correctly.

I took out the SCSI card (running a 16 Gig HDD with the OS on it, and a 34 Gig HDD with her files on it). I put in a 20 Gig IDE HDD I had laying around, and successfully installed the OS, and the computer is working fine.

Now, when I go to put the SCSI card (adaptec card) back in with the drives attached, it uses the SCSI drives as first boot devices. I want to just take the loss on the 20 Gig IDE drive (eh, its a Western Digital drive, and anyone here that has seen my drive recomendations knows I only use Seagate drives now), but it won't work if it can't load the OS.

Anyone know how I can force the SCSI drives to be slaves? I have checked both the BIOS & SCSI card BIOS options, and can't find anything... Tomorrow I will see if there are jumpers I can set.

 

[MichaelD]

Do you want to boot to, and load the new OS on the SCSI drive or are you trying to boot from the SCSI drive like nothing ever happened? (old Motherboard fried)? As you know, booting to an old hardware install is risky at best.

If all you're trying to do is the former, check these things.

In the motherboard's bios boot options, there should be a setting to make SCSI/Add-In cards the boot device. Also, in the SCSI cards' bios, there should be a setting to make the card the boot device. Check those.

Remember; you WILL need your SCSI card drivers on a floppy disc to load during the Windows install process. (Hit F6...you'll see the message on screen.)

 

[EtherealDragon]

Well, for the time being, I have OS intalled & working on a 20 Gig IDE drive, and I am wanting to (for the time being) have the SCSI drives be for storage, and so that I can move her saved data to the IDE drive, then format the SCSI drives, and possibly install an OS....

I will check out the card for a model number when I get home from work today, and see if I can find a spare floppy drive to put in there for installing the drivers, which I will also have to find... .

Thanks for the quick reply!!

 

[Trashman]

If your using an adaptec scsi card you shouldn't have to use F6 option to install drivers.

 

[corkyg]

You set the boot drive in the system BIOS. You set the SCSI drive roles in the SCSI BIOS - it is separate. It should be no problem to tell SCSI it has a storage role only - and it is not a boot drive. Drivers for Adaptec cards are packaged on media with the card. The most common one is the 2940, and it has several variants. I used them about 10 years ago. There was an F key access to the SCSI BIOS, but it was so long ago I don't recall it.

 

[Trashman]

He shouldn't need to configure scsi BIOS on card, though, it's not a new card, card was working with previous board, BIOS on scsi card retains boot info....just tryin not to confuse or have him do more work then need be...he just needs to make sure new mobo is set to boot scsi first.

 

[EtherealDragon]

I have it set currently to boot the IDE device first, but it just doesn't want too, not matter what I try. I am at work right now, so I don't have the PC in front of me, but I DID go through the card BIOS (CTRL + A) during bootup. I looked and DID find something pertaining to bootup, but it only gave 1 of the 2 SCSI drives as an option, nothing else...

The card LOOKS to be http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/support/scsi/u160/ASC-39160/ that card, as it is the only card that looks like what is in the PC with "two internal 68-pin LVD SCSI connectors, one internal 50-pin Ultra SCSI connector, and two external 68-pin VHDCI LVD SCSI connectors"

 

[MichaelD]

Try moving the SCSI card to a different PCI slot. Diff PCI slots = diff IRQ's + diff boot order sometimes. I've personally seen this on a SuperMicro server motherboard AND on an older Abit AMD board.

When all the settings are correct and it "boots normally" I.E. it goes thru the motions but is still not doing what you want it to, switch the PCI slots.

 

[Rubycon]

If you don't want to boot from the SCSI card disable the boot ROM and the system won't make it bootable.

On Adaptec cards it's CTRL+A to get into its BIOS. Just make sure SCSI BIOS is turned OFF, save and reboot.

Even with it ON, the motherboard's boot order SHOULD take precedence but sometimes it may not. (i.e. older system)

 

[EtherealDragon]

It was my bad.... The problem ended up being in the MOTHERBOARD BIOS.... I had the Boot SEQUENCE setup correctly, but there was ANOTHER option in the advanced settings for boot disk PRIORITY. Even though the SEQUENCE had the IDE drive as 3rd boot, (after FDD & optical), it still used the SCSI drives as a higher priority... Can't say that I have seen a priority setting like that in BIOS before. I will have to be more careful next time.

Thanks everyone.