Epox 4pca3+ and Adaptec 19160 scsi controller problem

[Black Knight]

I'm having some serious problems getting these 2 to work together..
Actually the problem surfaces as soon as I plug a HD into the hpt raid controller.. As soon as I do, I am unable to boot off the scsi drive. (BOOT FAILURE error msg)

BTW: there are no SCSI boot choice in the BIOS like it says in the manual. tried 3 different bios releases..

This is getting very annoying since I've already got more HDs than I can get on the standard IDE controller.. pretty much thats the whole point of buying this mobo, coz it has a pile of places to plug HDs in

And another detail, I can't enable fastwrites on my Radeon 9500np software modded to 9700..

Bk.

[MasterAtArms]

I can't help you with the raid. The 9700pro and presumably the motherboard supports FW but it is a feature that Radeons do not benifit performance wise from. In fact if you check rage3d forums you will find that stability is effected in some cases. I enable it without stbility issues but only do because it is the default in bios (8RDA+). I could run a test comparing performance if you like.

[Black Knight]

There are no fastwrites option in the bios..
But I had to disable it in RivaTuner to make it run..
Dunno how much difference it makes, but still annoying that it doesnt werk

Anyway.. thats just a minor problem, the scsi/hpt one is the biggie..

Bk.

[Áedán]

Originally Posted by Black Knight

I'm having some serious problems getting these 2 to work together..
Actually the problem surfaces as soon as I plug a HD into the hpt raid controller.. As soon as I do, I am unable to boot off the scsi drive. (BOOT FAILURE error msg)

Yes, I can understand you would have some real problems getting them working. The problem is simple. The order in which the Option ROMs execute sets the order in which the BIOS sees the hard disks. The order in which the Option ROMs execute is set by their location in the upper memory block. This is a throwback to the original PC design!

The BIOS is highest in memory. It gets to select if it's IDE interfaces get assiged the first drive numbers.(IE drive 80)

The Option ROM for the HPT RAID is the highest ROM in memory, except for the BIOS itself. This means it gets second choice in the boot order. If the BIOS hasn't grabbed the boot drive option, the HPT Option ROM will do so.

The Option ROM for the Adaptec controller is lower down in the memory, so it gets executed later. This means it gets to tag it's devices on after the HPT's Option ROM.

The only way to ensure that the Adaptec controller gets to boot is to set it's Option ROM above the HPT's Option ROM. As the HPT Option ROM is physically part of the BIOS, this is difficult to do.

My recommendation is simply to use the HPT to boot from, and then get the Adaptec controller up and running afterwards. There's nothing stopping the bootsector being on the HPT controller, but throwing control to the SCSI drive for the boot process.

Áedán

[Black Knight]

Yes.. this is exactly what I expected what happening. (only a bit more detailed )

But having the boot sector on one of the ide disks is very impractical, as I'm not always going to have the same disks in the machine..
And I would have to have a primary partition on one of the drives on the hpt controller, which I dont have atm, since I'm booting off the scsi drive normally..

This whole thing worked on my Gigabyte mobo, which also has a raid controller, so this really should be possible.. My guess its a hpt bios issue, or possibly an epox bios issue.. Why can't I choose SCSI as a boot device in the BIOS anyway? its supposed to be there according to the manual...

What I dont understand is why on earth he refuses to check the "next in line" controller when there are no bootable partition on the hpt controller.. and WHY can't I remove the "BOOT" flag on all HDs in the hpt controller BIOS??

[Black Knight]

I keep reading about a modded bios for my mobo with the latest hpt bios included (3.02).. But I can not for the life of me find it.. Could someone post a link to it?

Bk.

[Black Knight]

Well.. I got an answer from Epox techsupport about my problem, and they said they are aware of it, and will try to fix it in the next BIOS release. Aiming to be released in early July...

Thought I should answer my own question just in case there are others looking for answers to the same problem..

Bk.