Booting from hard drive attached to PCI

I would like to ask some questions of the hard drive specialists here.

----

I have a PC based on an old SV266A motherboard by Syntax running a
socket-A processor and WinXP.

The mobo supports only PATA.
The PC has 2 PCI adapter cards: one for PATA and the other for SATA.

The chips in the adpter cards a
Silicon Image SiI 0680 Ultra-ATA/133 Medley RAID
Silicon Image SiI 3512 SATARaid

The PATA card has a BIOS which can be flashed but the SATA card does
not.

----

(1) Can I boot off a SATA drive attached to the adapter?

(2) Can I boot off a PATA drive attached to the adapter.

----


Thanks

Joe S wrote:
I would like to ask some questions of the hard drive specialists here.

----

I have a PC based on an old SV266A motherboard by Syntax running a
socket-A processor and WinXP.

The mobo supports only PATA.
The PC has 2 PCI adapter cards: one for PATA and the other for SATA.

The chips in the adpter cards a
Silicon Image SiI 0680 Ultra-ATA/133 Medley RAID
Silicon Image SiI 3512 SATARaid

The PATA card has a BIOS which can be flashed but the SATA card does
not.

----

(1) Can I boot off a SATA drive attached to the adapter?

(2) Can I boot off a PATA drive attached to the adapter.

----


Thanks

One of the jobs of the BIOS chip that is present on the adapter card,
is support for INT 0x13. That is the software interrupt that provides
read/write access to a disk, during boot at POST.

http://www.dewassoc.com/support/bios...extensions.htm

The BIOS chip on the motherboard, is modular. It has a main body of
code, that supports the major chipset components. It can also have a
BIOS module for each additional chip added to the motherboard. For
example, if there was a RAID chip on the motherboard, then a RAID
BIOS module can be added to the BIOS image stored in the motherboard
flash chip.

Say, for example, you had a SIL3112 on a motherboard. The motherboard
BIOS had a SIL3112 module embedded in it. If you added a PCI card
with a SIL3112 on it, it is just possible that the same BIOS code
could control and access both chips. As another example, on SCSI cards,
I believe it is possible for the BIOS on one card, to be used
to control more than one card of the same brand (Adaptec SCSI).

In the case of your SIL3512, the motherboard is not likely to have
a BIOS module for it. If the card has no flash chip whatsoever, then
there is no place to store the INT 0x13 extension code. The BIOS will
not know what to do with the SIL3512 during POST, and would ignore
it in a practical sense.

Cards that are missing a BIOS module, can still be used for data disks.
A driver installed in the OS, allows the OS to access the disks on the
controller, once the OS has finished booting. So cards without a BIOS
are not a total loss. You just can't boot from them.

Similarly, on some server motherboards, there are situations where
not all the BIOS add-in modules can be loaded at POST. There is insufficient
low memory for all of them, in some cases. If so-equipped, it is possible
to disable the BIOS on some of the add-in cards, so that only the
cards that are candidates as boot devices, have their BIOS loaded.
Or, by changing the slots the cards sit in, and knowing the preferred
order the BIOS modules load in, it is possible to put the cards you
want to "lose" at the BIOS loading game, lower down on the loading
priority list.

I don't own a SIL0680 (formerly known as CMD 0680 - the chip is quite
old, and SIL acquired it and possibly made tiny changes to it). I'll
leave it to a previous poster to describe it. See post #11 in this
thread. I'd sooner use a Promise Ultra133 card, than try the SIL 0680.
I don't know the technical details, as to why it doesn't play nice. Some
people seem to have no complaints. And not everybody likes Promise
cards either - especially if you try to use more than one card. Googling a
card's make/model or the major chip on it, is a good idea no matter what
you want to buy:

http://groups.google.ca/group/micros...4a127097f38b95

Paul

"Joe S" wrote in message
...
I would like to ask some questions of the hard drive specialists here.

----

I have a PC based on an old SV266A motherboard by Syntax running a
socket-A processor and WinXP.

The mobo supports only PATA.
The PC has 2 PCI adapter cards: one for PATA and the other for SATA.

The chips in the adpter cards a
Silicon Image SiI 0680 Ultra-ATA/133 Medley RAID
Silicon Image SiI 3512 SATARaid

The PATA card has a BIOS which can be flashed but the SATA card does
not.

----

(1) Can I boot off a SATA drive attached to the adapter?

(2) Can I boot off a PATA drive attached to the adapter.



I've actually got both those same cards in my server.

One of the drives connected to the SiI 0680 is the OS drive and boots fine
from it. The SiI 3512 is only used for a mobile rack, and I have never
attempted to boot from it.

ss.

Joe S wrote:

I would like to ask some questions of the hard drive specialists here.

----

I have a PC based on an old SV266A motherboard by Syntax running a
socket-A processor and WinXP.

The mobo supports only PATA.
The PC has 2 PCI adapter cards: one for PATA and the other for SATA.

The chips in the adpter cards a
Silicon Image SiI 0680 Ultra-ATA/133 Medley RAID
Silicon Image SiI 3512 SATARaid

The PATA card has a BIOS which can be flashed but the SATA card does
not.

----

(1) Can I boot off a SATA drive attached to the adapter?

(2) Can I boot off a PATA drive attached to the adapter.

----

Thanks

I've used a a PCI card for connecting boot drive in two cases. Mainly
for the convenience of getting extra sockets. The trick is to tell BIOS
to boot from SCSI when selecting "Boot from...".

I know..., it isn't SCSI, but it tells the motherboard to look for a boot
device on the PCI bus instead of the IDE ports.

Some system BIOSs will allow you to specify which SCSI adapter to boot with. Most will boot from only the first SCSI adapter that loads its BIOS. A real SCSI adapter will allow you to disable its BIOS. The ATA cards I have seen that emulate SCSI don't allow you to disable the BIOS; you most change PCI card slots to change which card will be used to boot.

Johannes Andersen wrote:

Joe S wrote:

I would like to ask some questions of the hard drive specialists here.

----

I have a PC based on an old SV266A motherboard by Syntax running a
socket-A processor and WinXP.

The mobo supports only PATA.
The PC has 2 PCI adapter cards: one for PATA and the other for SATA.

The chips in the adpter cards a
Silicon Image SiI 0680 Ultra-ATA/133 Medley RAID
Silicon Image SiI 3512 SATARaid

The PATA card has a BIOS which can be flashed but the SATA card does
not.

----

(1) Can I boot off a SATA drive attached to the adapter?

(2) Can I boot off a PATA drive attached to the adapter.

----

Thanks

I've used a a PCI card for connecting boot drive in two cases. Mainly
for the convenience of getting extra sockets. The trick is to tell BIOS
to boot from SCSI when selecting "Boot from...".

I know..., it isn't SCSI, but it tells the motherboard to look for a boot
device on the PCI bus instead of the IDE ports.

--
Mike Walsh
West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.A.

Mike Walsh wrote:

Some system BIOSs will allow you to specify which SCSI adapter to boot with. Most will boot from only the first SCSI adapter that loads its BIOS. A real SCSI adapter will allow you to disable its BIOS. The ATA cards I have seen that emulate SCSI don't allow you to disable the BIOS; you most change PCI card slots to change which card will be used to boot.


AFAIK, it is much simpler. It is not a SCSI emulation, it is just that the
BIOS option 'Boot from SCSI' makes the motherboard look for the boot device
on the PCI BUS, where is expects to find an alternative device, but not
necessarily a SCSI. The device type SCSI/PATA/SATA has really nothing to do
with PCI, it comes in much later by the type of disc connector card you plug
into the PCI.

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 08:15:13 +0100, Joe S
wrote:

I would like to ask some questions of the hard drive specialists here.

----

I have a PC based on an old SV266A motherboard by Syntax running a
socket-A processor and WinXP.

The mobo supports only PATA.
The PC has 2 PCI adapter cards: one for PATA and the other for SATA.

The chips in the adpter cards a
Silicon Image SiI 0680 Ultra-ATA/133 Medley RAID
Silicon Image SiI 3512 SATARaid

The PATA card has a BIOS which can be flashed but the SATA card does
not.

----

(1) Can I boot off a SATA drive attached to the adapter?

(2) Can I boot off a PATA drive attached to the adapter.



Unless the motherboard bios has a severe bug, yes you should
be able to boot from either, if you only had one of the two
cards installed.

If you have both cards installed, things become more
interesting because some boards will "see" both of them and
allow choosing but others will only allow the first seen.
This is even true with two of the exact same controller card
installed.

What exactly do you mean by "The PATA card has a BIOS which
can be flashed but the SATA card does not."? That statement
could be taken two ways. Does it mean the SATA card has no
bios EEPROM on it, or merely that you have no bios file
available you could flash to it, and further, why would you
mention whether you can flash the bios since this is not
necessarily relevant to your question?

Most SiI3512 cards (or discrete chips integrated onto a
motherboard) should have a bios. That bios could be on an
EEPROM or PROM on the card, or a module in the motherboard
bios if it's a SiI3512 chip soldered to the motherboard.

Also keep in mind that you can't move a WinNT/2K/XP/Vista(?)
drive to either of these controllers without some changes to
the OS so it loads the driver and knows to look on this
alternate controller. Normally the OS is installed to the
drive directly on the card and you press F5 during the
installation to supply the card driver.

Paul wrote:

.... snip ...

I don't own a SIL0680 (formerly known as CMD 0680 - the chip is
quite old, and SIL acquired it and possibly made tiny changes to
it). I'll leave it to a previous poster to describe it. See post
#11 in this thread. ...

You should be aware that posts are not numbered on Usenet, in fact
many posts may never arrive at any given destination. At the
moment, on my machine, this thread contains exactly seven posts.
You can refer to posts by the name of the poster, and (best) by the
internal identification code. This shows up under the Message-ID:
header, and is always unique.

--
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/423
http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html
http://kadaitcha.cx/vista/dogsbreakfast/index.html
cbfalconer at maineline dot net



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

kony wrote:
On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 08:15:13 +0100, Joe S
wrote:

I would like to ask some questions of the hard drive specialists
here.

----

I have a PC based on an old SV266A motherboard by Syntax running a
socket-A processor and WinXP.

The mobo supports only PATA.
The PC has 2 PCI adapter cards: one for PATA and the other for SATA.

The chips in the adpter cards a
Silicon Image SiI 0680 Ultra-ATA/133 Medley RAID
Silicon Image SiI 3512 SATARaid

The PATA card has a BIOS which can be flashed but the SATA card does
not.

----

(1) Can I boot off a SATA drive attached to the adapter?

(2) Can I boot off a PATA drive attached to the adapter.



Unless the motherboard bios has a severe bug, yes you should
be able to boot from either, if you only had one of the two
cards installed.

If you have both cards installed, things become more
interesting because some boards will "see" both of them and
allow choosing but others will only allow the first seen.
This is even true with two of the exact same controller card
installed.

I have found that, with more than one controller board, the mobo BIOS will
'look' at each in turn until it finds a bootable HDD/partition. IME, as long
as there's only one bootable drive attached to the PCI cards it seems to
work. (I have fairly limited experience with this though)

What exactly do you mean by "The PATA card has a BIOS which
can be flashed but the SATA card does not."? That statement
could be taken two ways. Does it mean the SATA card has no
bios EEPROM on it, or merely that you have no bios file
available you could flash to it, and further, why would you
mention whether you can flash the bios since this is not
necessarily relevant to your question?

Most SiI3512 cards (or discrete chips integrated onto a
motherboard) should have a bios. That bios could be on an
EEPROM or PROM on the card, or a module in the motherboard
bios if it's a SiI3512 chip soldered to the motherboard.

Also keep in mind that you can't move a WinNT/2K/XP/Vista(?)
drive to either of these controllers without some changes to
the OS so it loads the driver and knows to look on this
alternate controller. Normally the OS is installed to the
drive directly on the card and you press F5 during the
installation to supply the card driver.

Yeah, I thought that too. However, recently I had occasion to install a VIA
VT6421 RAID PCI card (2 x SATA + 1 x dual-fifo PATA connectors) and then
Ghost a failing (Samsung) 80GB ATA100 HDD (10GB boot partition, XP Pro,
attached to mobo IDE) to a (Seagate) 200GB SATA HDD on the controller card.

When I removed the 80GB HDD and set the BIOS to boot from "SCSI" (Soltek
SL75FRN-2L, nForce 2 Ultra chipset. Board re-capped) it booted into Windows
just fine. I then shrunk the boot partition down (Who in their right mind
would build a machine with a 200GB boot partition? The version of Ghost that
I have ('03?) will only 'ghost' a boot partition sucessfully onto a whole
drive, creating the partition and formatting it itself.) I then
repartitioned the 200 with Partition Magic, re-installed the 80GB and copied
the data from other partitions over.

So, in at least one instance that I know of (just did it two weeks ago) it
worked fine. I wouldn't bet on it though. It just happens that Windows has
the drivers for this controller integrated, the install disc that came with
it wasn't needed (I have a few of the controllers, Windows always finds the
drivers without the driver CD). Perhaps that's why it works OK? I've never
used the RAID function of the cards, I just use them for installing SATA
drives to a PC without SATA ports onboard. They were relatively cheap.

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007 13:56:35 +1200, "~misfit~"
wrote:


I have found that, with more than one controller board, the mobo BIOS will
'look' at each in turn until it finds a bootable HDD/partition. IME, as long
as there's only one bootable drive attached to the PCI cards it seems to
work. (I have fairly limited experience with this though)


It may be possible but I had an old Compaq / i810 board that
wouldn't. Both cards appear in the SiI Medly(?) Manager
software in windows and allow windows access but only the
first appears including the bios F-Key prompt to configure
the arrays.