I am trying to upgrade a 3 year old Dell Dimension XPS B 1000r
computer. It has a CDRW, DVDRW, Zip drive, floppy and 512 MB RAM. I
have installed a SIIG PCI combo card containing USB 2.0 + Fire Wire +
ATA 133 (one channel) + SATA (one channel). I have connected a Maxtor
120 GB ATA 133 HD to the ATA channel and a Western Digital 36 GB
"Raptor" SATA HD to the SATA connection. I want the machine to boot
from the SATA drive. BIOS boot options do not show any SATA, SCSI or
other device available, only the EIDE devices. The machine will boot
to the SATA drive if I remove the EIDE HD. The Dell Systems Reference
Manual clearly shows that devices other than EIDE are possible to be
listed in the boot options, i.e. an Adaptec SCSI controller or a
"Intel UNDI" device. I have tried making the EIDE device a slave, but
as this controller is only one channel for EIDE, it does not allow
access to the EIDE slave drive. The WD HD has been made active. Both
drives are NTFS. Currently I am running Windows XP Pro from the Maxtor
with the WD HD as an auxilliary drive. The machine has the latest
Dell Bios, A08.
My research:
Contacted Western Digital: As long as the HD is functioning, they had
no comment about the motherboard or add-in card.
SIIG: They don't believe I can boot from this device and suggested I
return the card.
Dell Hard drive discussion group: Only suggestion was to make the WD
drive active. It is.
Dell Support (via email): after 10 exchanges with 5 different people,
they suggested that it was not possible to boot from the SATA drive.
They have not responded to my point that their own manual shows it is
possible to boot from devices other than EIDE.
Intel: They have stopped support of the motherboard (its a VC820,
modified by Dell) in May 2003. They have Bioses available for the
Intel version of the board that might be able to be flashed to the
Dell motherboard, but my investigation showed no features that would
make the SATA drive bootable.
Third party Bioses: I am still investigating if it would be possible
to use a modified Bios or third party bios to make the SATA bootable.
My Question: Is it possible for this machine to boot from the SATA
drive with EIDE drives connected and if so, how do I do this. If it
is not possible, why not?
Thanks,
SteveO55
Hi,
Are there any configuration options for the SIIG card?
I'm guessing it has its own BIOS a bit like SCSI cards. Can you enter
this BIOS during boot? Does it flash the option on screen? Can you
have a look in the manual?
To the motherboard, I don't think it matters, because it can boot from
the card, but I don't believe it can choose which device to boot from
once it has chosen to boot from the card. It is then up to the card.
Thanks.
endo
Steve055,
Thanks for the list. It's becoming less likely to me that the VC820
could support a SCSI or other PCI card with other bootable devices.
You said above that in your manual, it is possible to boot from other
devices. Does it explain if 'other devices' includes add on PCI cards?
I just hope it doesn't mean just floppies and CDs.
Techtor,
One of the reasons I started this process is because, based on
the illustration of the BIOS screen in the Dell manual, the 2 devices
I mentioned, in addition to the ones I listed, were shown as boot
options. The SCSI device was an Adaptec PCI card, AHA29XX. The Intel
UNDI device appears to be either an add-on card or a motherboard
device for booting from the Network via the Intel Boot Agent. As far
as I know, on board network capability was not part of the Dell
version of the Intel card. The SCSI device is a PCI add-on card. My
asumption was that it is possible to install and choose a PCI card
controller to boot from. Certainly more options than I listed in my
clarification seem possible.
Endo,
The only configuration option for the SIIG card is a jumper that
disables the ATA 133 channel. Otherwise, there are no hardware
options. Yes, it has its own BIOS that flashes on the screen after
the motherboard BIOS, but as far as I know, it is not available for
modification. Note that the SIIG technician at no time presented the
possibility of changing any settings in the SIIG BIOS, nor is that
mentioned in the SIIG manual. I have not tried hitting delete while
the BIOS is detecting the drives, but I will when I am in front of the
screen again. The concept you propose makes sense but I am unsure as
to how to tell the motherboard to boot from this card. It seemed to
do it as it had no other options when I removed the Maxtor ATA 133
drive. The ATA 133 channel appears as the primary channel while the
SATA is labled the secondary channel.
So it appears to be 2 issues - tell the MB BIOS to boot from the
card, then tell the card to choose the SATA drive.
Thanks to both of you, I really appreciate the discussion. Upgrade Computer - Hardware Guide Results for Upgrade Computer::
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Thanks for the quick response. The boot options are:
Floppy
IDE-HDD
ATAPI-CDROM
ARMD-FDD
ARMD-HDD
OPTION ROM
DISABLED
The RDRAM was upgraded from 256 MB PC600 to 512 MB PC800. The RDRAM
is manufactured by Samsung, an accepted match for the OEM Dell
supplied RDRAM.
Looking forward to your analysis.
SteveO55,
What are the other boot options that show up when selecting a boot
device in the BIOS? Do they include IDE0, IDE1, CD-ROM, Floppy, PCI
card and so on? Please show a list of the BIOS options you encounter
in your motherboard.
I also notice that your board is one of the now-rare RDRAM boards.
Very fast RAM, but rare now because of its expense. I wonder if
there's a connection between the problem and the RDRAM system. But
that's a guess first. Let's see first what you can show us.
Wy-ga
I've set up the order of the boot options so that the OPTION ROM
is first. It made no difference - the SATA drive did not boot with an
EIDE HD attached. It seems as though the card is not capable of
specifying a boot device or that because there is only one channel
each for the ATA133 HD and one for the SATA HD, any boot option would
automatically seek the primary channel on the card first (the ATA 133
drive) and then the secondary channel (the SATA drive).
I guess that this is the reason that the card's BIOS is not
accessible. SIIG has already decided on boot order for the card and
its all automatic. Thanks for the suggestion though.
Hello Steveo55,
Sorry to say I'm still of the mindset that the SIIG card wouldn't work
on your mainboard, since I believe the board was made at a time when
SATA was unforeseen, nobody had any idea that such a technology would
be made. SCSI on the other hand was present during that time, and
support for that technology was common. And I also believe add-on
cards that have boot options should be selectable in the BIOS. If
there are none, then that is a system probably meant to be just have
the normal set of hard disks and that's all you'll need. Perhaps that
is also what the VC820 board was meant to be; an "all that's there is
all you need" board, with little or no room for upgrade to other kinds
of PC technology. RDRAM was new technology then, and it was being
flaunted as something that' "all you end", but sadly, it didn't click.
Well, these are just my opinions, get a second one as much as
possible.
Sorry I couldn't be of any further assistance, and I wish you luck.
Techtor, Wy,
I have resolved the issue and have gotten the machine to
boot from a SATA/ATA133 card. Based on what the SIIG tech told me and
what I have discovered for myself, the SIIG card is incapable of
booting from the SATA drive due to the card BIOS. It will boot from
the ATA133/EIDE drive, but only because it appears to be the only
drive available - I suspect it may have problems with multiple EIDE
drives both on the card and on the motherboard ATA channels. I
replaced the SIIG card with a Promise card and it boots beautifully
from the SATA drive. The card is a SATA150 TX2plus. Note that this
happens all independently from the motherboard Bios, although the SATA
card Bios is not available to change options. I have not tested other
combinations of drives to see what the boot order would be for a mix
of ATA and SATA drives on the card and motherboard.
Thanks for everyone's help and suggestions.
I'm considering the issue resolved.
Thanks Techtor,
I appreciate your thoughts. This may be the conclusion I reach
too. I am checking into third party Bioses and have not received a
final answer from Dell. I may not get one as they may think I'm just
too stubborn or persistent.
I still cling to the view that, since Dell's manual showed the
possibility of other devices, that this card should show up as
something. That still doesn't allow me to access the card's BIOS to
specify one device over the other and that may, in fact, be the
sticking point. I am also investigating other SATA add-on cards that
may have more sophisticated Bioses. It seems they all use the same
chipset by Silicon Image.
Yes, I agree with your take on the history of computer upgrades.
RAMBUS was just too expensive in comparison to today's chips. I also
realize that for a computer maker such as Dell, it is not in their
best interest for future sales to make an upgradeable machine with
flexibility. I'll have to build one of those myself.
Thanks again.
What happens when you try to boot using OPTION ROM?
That option seems to be the one neccessary to use the external SIIG serial ATA card.
wy-ga,
Interesting idea. I tried a couple of different ways, none successful.
I settled on the following order as the one most likely to force the SATA to boot:
OPTION ROM
ARMD HDD
ARMD FDD
FLOPPY
ATAPI CDROM
DISABLED
Putting the OPTION ROM first and the ARMD HDD second, while disabling
the IDE-HDD option, I thought might force the SATA to boot. I think
it only may have forced the boot to the SATA card where the EIDE 133
HD is the primary device, while the SATA is secondary. It seems that
the issue is not being able to set the boot option of the SATA
controller card. There are several other SATA cards available by other
manufacturers such as Promise that have an accessible BIOS. I've sent
emails to the manufacturers to see if my situation would be solved by
their cards. I'll continue to chronicle my experience.
Thanks,
SteveO55
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