SCSI Problem! Gurus Please Help

[CigarSmokedByClinton]

I have an ASUS p5a w/ AMD k6/2 450. I am attempting to install a SCSI drive through a Adaptec AHA-1540C host adapter. I am able to get through WinXP setup, but only the first part where it loads a bunch of stuff onto the SCSI hard drive. So therefore I know it works cause it "copies the files Windows needs to install" to SOMETHING and its the only harddrive in the machine. So the error occurs after it completes copying the files and reboots fo the first time. It detects my bootable windows CD and asks if I wish to boot from CD. I don't. It then says Error reading from drive, please press Alt-Ctrl-Del to reboot. I do so. It reboots. Same problem.

Anyone have any ideas? are there any settings in the SCSI bios or in the ASUS bios which neeed to be enabled? I currently have it looking for SCSI first in the ASUS BIOS.

So Gurus! Any ideas?

Cigar

 

[JC]

Hmmm....let's see. Is the drive startable in FDISK? Did you format with the /s switch? Check in the SCSI card BIOS, make sure the drive ID is 0 and it's set to boot from it. Since you have the
P5A BIOS set to boot from SCSI, those are the only things that come to my mind.

JC

 

[CigarSmokedByClinton]

Ok, I tried fdisk, it can see the 2G NTFS partition just fine, its set to active, etc. So I quit fdisk, and try to go to c: drive, its my RAMdrive teh boot disk puts on. For some reason Fdisk can see it, but its not loaded into DOS for some reason.

Another interesting fact. I have the SCSI host set for IRQ 11, and have tried IRQ 10, both have worked, but thus far I have not been able to see the IRQ assigned to the host controller when the computer boots. You know how there's that summary/status screen when it boots, and how you can hit pause, and you can see how much ram you have, the IRQ settings, the mode of your harddrive, etc etc etc. But for some reason the SCSI host controller is not listed in the IRQ table. Could this be the problem?

Cigar

 

[JC]

Did you low-level format the drive from the SCSI BIOS first?

Edit: try this PDF

 

[CigarSmokedByClinton]

yes. That was how I was originally able to install to the drive in the first place....

Cigar

 

[CigarSmokedByClinton]

Would I have been able to do this much if my terminations were incorrect? Cause that is one thing I don't know anything about. Whatcha all think?

Cigar

 

[Steven the Leech]

Ive have had a similar problem before and i cant remember exactly what i had to do to fix it but the temporary fix was to take the bootable cd out and boot up past the scsi bios then put in the OS CD and it would complete the setup. Is first boot set to SCSI in the mb bios? Did you try changing slots with the scsi card?

 

[JC]

Make sure the SCSI card's BIOS is enabled, per the PDF I linked to...and check the I/O address.
The SCSI BIOS utility should be able to tell you if there's any termination issues. There should be some jumper settings listed on the HD as far as termination, SCSI ID, etc. Seems like
since you formatted it through the SCSI BIOS, the termination is prolly OK.

 

[CigarSmokedByClinton]

Steve, that quick fix doesn't work in my case, I've tried that and many a variation. Any more ideas?

 

[CigarSmokedByClinton]

From reading the pdf I have determined that my termination is ok, and that the IRQ is assigned by the SCSI host adapter. I figured out why my win98 boot disk couldn't see the drive. It was formatted in NTFS. DUH!!! so I'm formating with format c: /s to see if I can boot to a dos prompt. If that works, I should be able to install win 98 or something. If it boots to DOS, it should boot to anything. Any other suggestinos? You guyts have been very helpful, but keep the ideas comming!!