Hello,

I have a Dell PowerEdge 600SC running the A09 BIOS. The mobo has 3 IDE
controllers. I have two IDE hard drives connected to the Primary IDE
controller, with one jumpered as the master and the other as the slave.
I have a DVD drive and a CD-ROM drive connected to the Secondary IDE
controller with the DVD drive jumpered as the master and the CD-ROM
drive as the slave. The system also has a connected 3.5" floppy drive.
There is currently nothing connected to the Tertiary IDE controller.

The BIOS and Windows XP both see all the drives, and I can use all the
drives without problems. However, now I have a need to configure both
the DVD and CD-ROM drives in the boot sequence, but I can only get one
of them at a time to show up in the boot sequence setting in the BIOS.
I can make it the DVD *or* the CD-ROM, but not both at the same time.

I've tried putting the DVD and CD-ROM drives on different controllers
and changing the jumper settings accordingly, but none of the
combinations I've tried have worked. The only combination that I have
not tried is putting the DVD drive on the same cable as the primary hard
drive, and the CD-ROM drive on the same cable as the secondary hard
drive, or vice versa (I've heard that can slow down hard drive
operation). What I would like is a boot order like the following:

DVD drive
CD-ROM drive
Hard drive
Floppy drive

How can I connect and jumper the drives in the system to get that boot
order?

Thanks for any help that you can offer.

--Tom

"Thomas M." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hello,
>
> I have a Dell PowerEdge 600SC running the A09 BIOS. The mobo has 3 IDE
> controllers. I have two IDE hard drives connected to the Primary IDE
> controller, with one jumpered as the master and the other as the slave.
> I have a DVD drive and a CD-ROM drive connected to the Secondary IDE
> controller with the DVD drive jumpered as the master and the CD-ROM
> drive as the slave. The system also has a connected 3.5" floppy drive.
> There is currently nothing connected to the Tertiary IDE controller.
>
> The BIOS and Windows XP both see all the drives, and I can use all the
> drives without problems. However, now I have a need to configure both
> the DVD and CD-ROM drives in the boot sequence, but I can only get one
> of them at a time to show up in the boot sequence setting in the BIOS.
> I can make it the DVD *or* the CD-ROM, but not both at the same time.
>
> I've tried putting the DVD and CD-ROM drives on different controllers
> and changing the jumper settings accordingly, but none of the
> combinations I've tried have worked. The only combination that I have
> not tried is putting the DVD drive on the same cable as the primary hard
> drive, and the CD-ROM drive on the same cable as the secondary hard
> drive, or vice versa (I've heard that can slow down hard drive
> operation). What I would like is a boot order like the following:
>
> DVD drive
> CD-ROM drive
> Hard drive
> Floppy drive
>
> How can I connect and jumper the drives in the system to get that boot
> order?
>

While I am pondering your question, let me ask one.

Why do you want both the DVD drive an the CD drive to be capable of booting
the PC? Invariably, a bootable disc would only be inserted in one drive and
not both. Why can't you just put the bootable disc in whichever drive you
configure as bootable?

It may be a limitation of your BIOS that you can only have one bootable
optical drive.

Thomas M. wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have a Dell PowerEdge 600SC running the A09 BIOS. The mobo has 3 IDE
> controllers. I have two IDE hard drives connected to the Primary IDE
> controller, with one jumpered as the master and the other as the slave.
> I have a DVD drive and a CD-ROM drive connected to the Secondary IDE
> controller with the DVD drive jumpered as the master and the CD-ROM
> drive as the slave. The system also has a connected 3.5" floppy drive.
> There is currently nothing connected to the Tertiary IDE controller.
>
> The BIOS and Windows XP both see all the drives, and I can use all the
> drives without problems. However, now I have a need to configure both
> the DVD and CD-ROM drives in the boot sequence, but I can only get one
> of them at a time to show up in the boot sequence setting in the BIOS.
> I can make it the DVD *or* the CD-ROM, but not both at the same time.
>
> I've tried putting the DVD and CD-ROM drives on different controllers
> and changing the jumper settings accordingly, but none of the
> combinations I've tried have worked. The only combination that I have
> not tried is putting the DVD drive on the same cable as the primary hard
> drive, and the CD-ROM drive on the same cable as the secondary hard
> drive, or vice versa (I've heard that can slow down hard drive
> operation). What I would like is a boot order like the following:
>
> DVD drive
> CD-ROM drive
> Hard drive
> Floppy drive
>
> How can I connect and jumper the drives in the system to get that boot
> order?
>
> Thanks for any help that you can offer.
>
> --Tom

This might be limitation of the bios, they do not support always all
boot orders. Why do you need extra cdrom for booting ? the dvd drive
can boot from cd perfectly well.

ismo

In article <4b028446$(E-Mail Removed)>,
(E-Mail Removed)_SPAM.co.uk says...

> While I am pondering your question, let me ask one.
>
> Why do you want both the DVD drive an the CD drive to be capable of booting
> the PC? Invariably, a bootable disc would only be inserted in one drive and
> not both. Why can't you just put the bootable disc in whichever drive you
> configure as bootable?
>
> It may be a limitation of your BIOS that you can only have one bootable
> optical drive.

Ordinarily, I would put only the DVD drive in the boot sequence.
However, I currently find myself in a situation where I want to wipe the
drive and install Windows 7. I have a bootable CD for wiping the drive,
but that disk is not recognized by the DVD drive for some reason. It
works fine in the CD-ROM drive. I also have a DVD containing Windows 7
that I will need to boot from once the drive has been wiped.

I can do this by manually changing the cabling and jumpers between the
wipe of the drive and the installation of Windows 7, but it just seems
like I should be able to make it work better than that.

I have considered that it might be a limitation of the BIOS.
Unfortunately, there are no updates to the BIOS listed on the Dell site,
so if it is a BIOS limitation then I guess that I'm stuck with it. I've
also considered that it might be some quirk of the drives themselves. I
think that's a stretch, but it wouldn't be the oddest thing I've ever
seen from a hardware device.

--Tom

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
(E-Mail Removed) says...

> This might be limitation of the bios, they do not support always all
> boot orders. Why do you need extra cdrom for booting ? the dvd drive
> can boot from cd perfectly well.
>
> ismo

See my reply to M.I.5. for details.

For some reason the DVD drive will not recognize the bootable CD that I
plan to use for wiping the drive. I'm not sure why. The disk works
fine in the CD drive. I suppose that I could burn a DVD copy of the
disk, but that just seems like a waste of a disk.

--Tom

Thomas M. wrote:
> In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
> (E-Mail Removed) says...
>
>> This might be limitation of the bios, they do not support always all
>> boot orders. Why do you need extra cdrom for booting ? the dvd drive
>> can boot from cd perfectly well.
>>
>> ismo
>
> See my reply to M.I.5. for details.
>
> For some reason the DVD drive will not recognize the bootable CD that I
> plan to use for wiping the drive. I'm not sure why. The disk works
> fine in the CD drive. I suppose that I could burn a DVD copy of the
> disk, but that just seems like a waste of a disk.
>
> --Tom

My BIOS supports a "popup boot" function key. I press F10
and all the bootable devices appear in a list in place of the
BIOS screen. I select the device I want to boot from, and
booting begins. Unfortunately, not all brands of BIOS
support that feature. I checked the manual for your computer,
and did not see that option. The function key used, isn't even
a constant, and varies from one design to the next. Just like
some of my machines use <Del> to enter the BIOS, while others
use <F2>.

(Example of a popup boot menu at the BIOS level...)

http://docs.sun.com/source/820-6772/...twork-Menu.gif

Using that key, means I don't have to enter the BIOS, and change
the boot order in there.

Many BIOS contain a basic boot order (Floppy, CDROM, HDD), and
at each level, the list of drives can be ordered. So if you had
two optical drives, you could select one or the other to be the
top-most priority optical drive. Using such menus, on my machine,
I would not have to re-cable any drives, to get the desired boot
order. Either entering the BIOS, and editing the lists in there will
achieve the desired effect. Or, for temporary boot situations,
I can use the popup key instead. A change made with the popup key,
is not saved.

Paul

"Thomas M." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
> (E-Mail Removed) says...
>
>> This might be limitation of the bios, they do not support always all
>> boot orders. Why do you need extra cdrom for booting ? the dvd drive
>> can boot from cd perfectly well.
>>
>> ismo
>
> See my reply to M.I.5. for details.
>
> For some reason the DVD drive will not recognize the bootable CD that I
> plan to use for wiping the drive. I'm not sure why. The disk works
> fine in the CD drive. I suppose that I could burn a DVD copy of the
> disk, but that just seems like a waste of a disk.
>
> --Tom

If this is a CD you created, you didn't use a CD-RW, did you? Some DVD combo
drives have a problem reading them.

SC Tom

"Thomas M." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> In article <4b028446$(E-Mail Removed)>,
> (E-Mail Removed)_SPAM.co.uk says...
>
>> While I am pondering your question, let me ask one.
>>
>> Why do you want both the DVD drive an the CD drive to be capable of
>> booting
>> the PC? Invariably, a bootable disc would only be inserted in one drive
>> and
>> not both. Why can't you just put the bootable disc in whichever drive
>> you
>> configure as bootable?
>>
>> It may be a limitation of your BIOS that you can only have one bootable
>> optical drive.
>
> Ordinarily, I would put only the DVD drive in the boot sequence.
> However, I currently find myself in a situation where I want to wipe the
> drive and install Windows 7. I have a bootable CD for wiping the drive,
> but that disk is not recognized by the DVD drive for some reason. It
> works fine in the CD-ROM drive. I also have a DVD containing Windows 7
> that I will need to boot from once the drive has been wiped.
>
> I can do this by manually changing the cabling and jumpers between the
> wipe of the drive and the installation of Windows 7, but it just seems
> like I should be able to make it work better than that.
>
> I have considered that it might be a limitation of the BIOS.
> Unfortunately, there are no updates to the BIOS listed on the Dell site,
> so if it is a BIOS limitation then I guess that I'm stuck with it. I've
> also considered that it might be some quirk of the drives themselves. I
> think that's a stretch, but it wouldn't be the oddest thing I've ever
> seen from a hardware device.
>

Whilst I haven't used a Windows 7 upgrade disc myself, if they are like
other Windows discs it sould offer you the choice of upgrading the current
OS or performing a fresh install wiping the disc in the process.

"Thomas M." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
> (E-Mail Removed) says...
>
>> This might be limitation of the bios, they do not support always all
>> boot orders. Why do you need extra cdrom for booting ? the dvd drive
>> can boot from cd perfectly well.
>>
>> ismo
>
> See my reply to M.I.5. for details.
>
> For some reason the DVD drive will not recognize the bootable CD that I
> plan to use for wiping the drive. I'm not sure why. The disk works
> fine in the CD drive. I suppose that I could burn a DVD copy of the
> disk, but that just seems like a waste of a disk.
>

DVD-RW? You can then reuse the disc.

> Whilst I haven't used a Windows 7 upgrade disc myself, if they are like
> other Windows discs it sould offer you the choice of upgrading the current
> OS or performing a fresh install wiping the disc in the process.

My CD contained a wipe utility that I had never used and wanted to try.

It turns out that after trying a bunch of different settings, I put
everything back the way it was originally and the DVD drive read the CD
without problems. I had previously cleaned the CD and the drive because
I've had dirty disks and drive lenses put a stopper in things before, so I'm
not sure why it didn't work the first time and did work the second time.
But suffice it to say, the problem is solved.

--Tom