DVD Burner not listed as boot device after F8 at Logo

[Neal Lavon]

I am trying to boot from a DVD burner attached to the Primary RAID
connector of my P5GD1. The drive reads fine in Windows but when I
attempted to use the F8 key at the logo to select it as a boot device,
all I got were my two hard drives and the floppy.

I am almost positive the ITE8212F setting in the onboard devices BIOS
configuration is set to IDE Mode but something screwy is going on
here. What could I check to see that the drives are connected properly
and the correct selections have been made on the motherboard? I have a
feeling when the tech set this up (the board was new at the time with
the PCI Express, etc.) that the optical drives were not set right. I
never could get a slave CD-ROM chained to the DVD burner to read in
Windows or be recognized by the BIOS. During IDE scan, the optical
drive is recognized but it also is not listed as a boot prority
option.

Any idea what I could do?


Neal Lavon
Takoma Park, MD
USA

 

[Joe Allison]

Read you mannual. With Promise controllers you can only have hard disks
attached to a RAID controllers.

 

[Paul]

I am trying to boot from a DVD burner attached to the Primary RAID
connector of my P5GD1. The drive reads fine in Windows but when I
attempted to use the F8 key at the logo to select it as a boot device,
all I got were my two hard drives and the floppy.

I am almost positive the ITE8212F setting in the onboard devices BIOS
configuration is set to IDE Mode but something screwy is going on
here. What could I check to see that the drives are connected properly
and the correct selections have been made on the motherboard? I have a
feeling when the tech set this up (the board was new at the time with
the PCI Express, etc.) that the optical drives were not set right. I
never could get a slave CD-ROM chained to the DVD burner to read in
Windows or be recognized by the BIOS. During IDE scan, the optical
drive is recognized but it also is not listed as a boot prority
option.

Any idea what I could do?


Neal Lavon
Takoma Park, MD
USA

There is an imaginative little procedure in this FAQ answer.
What I don't know, is if the BIOS will keep this setting,
if the optical drive no longer has a bootable piece of
media in it.

http://support.asus.com.tw/faq/faq_...F-1301-4EF8-D78A-A0DD6A4138BE&SLanguage=en-us

"Please follow the steps below to finish all settings:

1. Please put a bootable CD Disc in CDROM in advance.

2. Then, you will see the BIOS setup menu in
[Boot]/[Hard Disk Drives] show the CDROM model name for you
to select and a message "A Bootable CDROM was found" will
show after ITE8212 BIOS detects the IDE devices.

3. Please select the CDROM model name as first priority in
[Boot]/[Hard Disk Drives]

4. Save and Exit BIOS, the system will boot from CDROM that
you connected to ITE8212F RAID controller."

HTH,
Paul

 

[Robert Hancock]

I am trying to boot from a DVD burner attached to the Primary RAID
connector of my P5GD1. The drive reads fine in Windows but when I
attempted to use the F8 key at the logo to select it as a boot device,
all I got were my two hard drives and the floppy.

That controller probably does not support CD/DVD drives. Optical drives
will likely need to be connected to the main IDE connectors for the
chipset and not to the RAID controller.

 

[Neal Lavon]

I'll certainly try this out and see if it works. Where was this?

Neal Lavon

I am trying to boot from a DVD burner attached to the Primary RAID
connector of my P5GD1. The drive reads fine in Windows but when I
attempted to use the F8 key at the logo to select it as a boot device,
all I got were my two hard drives and the floppy.

I am almost positive the ITE8212F setting in the onboard devices BIOS
configuration is set to IDE Mode but something screwy is going on
here. What could I check to see that the drives are connected properly
and the correct selections have been made on the motherboard? I have a
feeling when the tech set this up (the board was new at the time with
the PCI Express, etc.) that the optical drives were not set right. I
never could get a slave CD-ROM chained to the DVD burner to read in
Windows or be recognized by the BIOS. During IDE scan, the optical
drive is recognized but it also is not listed as a boot prority
option.

Any idea what I could do?


Neal Lavon
Takoma Park, MD
USA

There is an imaginative little procedure in this FAQ answer.
What I don't know, is if the BIOS will keep this setting,
if the optical drive no longer has a bootable piece of
media in it.

http://support.asus.com.tw/faq/faq_...F-1301-4EF8-D78A-A0DD6A4138BE&SLanguage=en-us

"Please follow the steps below to finish all settings:

1. Please put a bootable CD Disc in CDROM in advance.

2. Then, you will see the BIOS setup menu in
[Boot]/[Hard Disk Drives] show the CDROM model name for you
to select and a message "A Bootable CDROM was found" will
show after ITE8212 BIOS detects the IDE devices.

3. Please select the CDROM model name as first priority in
[Boot]/[Hard Disk Drives]

4. Save and Exit BIOS, the system will boot from CDROM that
you connected to ITE8212F RAID controller."

HTH,
Paul

 

[Neal Lavon]

The way I read the manual is that for the IDE RAID connector, the book
says the are for ULTRA ATA 133/100/66 signal cables. The connectors
are set to IDE mode by default. In IDE mode you can connect IDE
devices to these connectors such as boot/data hard disk drives or
optical drives.

I'm willing to switch; do you think the controller is just not doing
what it is supposed to do, IDE-wise?

Neal Lavon

 

[Paul]

I'll certainly try this out and see if it works. Where was this?

Neal Lavon

Asus has a FAQ page, available as a menu item on the support page.
Frequently, the FAQ page is a waste of time, and I don't check it
too often, because most of the time it "states the obvious". It
is not a good source of insider info.

What I find especially ironic, is the picture at the top of the
FAQ page. The dude looks pretty perplexed, presumably as he
searches the FAQs ))

http://support.asus.com.tw/faq/faq.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

As for the ITE8212, the info on it is not consistent. The
release notes from the ITE8212 driver developers suggest
from a hardware perspective, there are no limits on the
chip. As far as they are concerned, it could support four
hard drives or four ATAPI devices. (Most of the time, when
something like that happens, it means the chip is a "soft"
RAID, and most of the grunting is done by the processor.)

One Asus tidbit I read, suggested only two opticals could
be connected, and it did not explain why there would be a
limit - I think it had something to do with booting via the
BIOS Int 0x13 services. I don't think the chip is as bad
as the Promise 20378, where ATAPI is just not supported, but
then again, I haven't read any good accounts of loading
the thing up and having it work. In general, good info
and testing on controllers like this, is real hard to
find (no reviewers ever seem to test these chips).

If you manage to get something working, post back your
config info, so others can benefit.

Paul