SATA Boot drive NOT!

[Husky]

SATA Boot drive NOT! Actually that's only half true. As long as there's no
major malfunction it boots fine from that drive.

After the floppy disaster I spent the day setting up all the drives correctly
according to the motherboard directions.

I now have the Drives as primaries, and the DVD,CD as secondary.
But there's 3 hard Drives the floppy, and the DVD and CD, and HP just added a
virtual drive.

I have
A: Floppy
C: SATA 152 gig boot Master
D: Memorex Dual layer DVD Master
E: HP 9300 CD Slave
F: 300 gig Maxtor IDE 10 gig IDE Maxtor data HD Master
G: 10 gig Maxtor IDE Slave
H: HP removable disk 0 bytes ?????

D and E chained to IDE secondary
F and G chained to IDE primary

Used to boot and not be able to find any of the drives on the 1st page boot
screen , but it still booted despite that and never lost a drive till I had to
install the OS again.

Now it identifies all the drives and accessories at bootup [takes a bit longer
now] on the 1st boot page, and the 2nd boot page that shows primary secondary,
they're missing. This might be interesting to fix also, but doesn't seem to
affect anything.

I already found out how to fix it if there's a major crash that screws the
motherboard settings again. Something that really shouldn't happen, but it has.

When it boots and says can't find OS that's when it starts looking for the OS
on A: Oh yeah, an OS that takes up more than a gig of HD on a 1.44 meg floppy.

How Do I get the SATA C: to replace A: the floppy when the next crash occurs ?
Or is A: just the way the motherboard configures it's defaults ?

 

[milleron]

SATA Boot drive NOT! Actually that's only half true. As long as there's no
major malfunction it boots fine from that drive.

After the floppy disaster I spent the day setting up all the drives correctly
according to the motherboard directions.

I now have the Drives as primaries, and the DVD,CD as secondary.
But there's 3 hard Drives the floppy, and the DVD and CD, and HP just added a
virtual drive.

I have
A: Floppy
C: SATA 152 gig boot Master
D: Memorex Dual layer DVD Master
E: HP 9300 CD Slave
F: 300 gig Maxtor IDE 10 gig IDE Maxtor data HD Master
G: 10 gig Maxtor IDE Slave
H: HP removable disk 0 bytes ?????

D and E chained to IDE secondary
F and G chained to IDE primary

Used to boot and not be able to find any of the drives on the 1st page boot
screen , but it still booted despite that and never lost a drive till I had to
install the OS again.

Now it identifies all the drives and accessories at bootup [takes a bit longer
now] on the 1st boot page, and the 2nd boot page that shows primary secondary,
they're missing. This might be interesting to fix also, but doesn't seem to
affect anything.

I already found out how to fix it if there's a major crash that screws the
motherboard settings again. Something that really shouldn't happen, but it has.

When it boots and says can't find OS that's when it starts looking for the OS
on A: Oh yeah, an OS that takes up more than a gig of HD on a 1.44 meg floppy.

How Do I get the SATA C: to replace A: the floppy when the next crash occurs ?
Or is A: just the way the motherboard configures it's defaults ?

Well, how do you have the boot order configured in BIOS?

And it's NOT looking for an OS that takes up more than a GB on a
1.44MB floppy. The BIOS has no idea what OS you want to run or load.
It's just looking for any OS on each device you have listed in your
"Boot Device Priority" in the "Boot" section of your BIOS setup. If
you instruct it to look first at A:, but it finds no OS there, then it
will automatically look for an OS on the next device on your list, and
so on.
A: is the traditional default for the first device. The list usually
reads "First Boot Device: Removable; Second Boot Device: Hard disk;
Third Boot Device: CDROM."
Under "Hard Disks," you can list the order in which you want your hard
drives to be queried.

Ron

 

[Bushy]

To boot from SATA disks , the bios needs to be set to scsi in many cases.
So, the boot order would be floppy, scsi, then cdrom. Another option would
be to set up your system with just one cd drive, and your SATA hdd. Do your
install, then once its stable and booting from the right HD, then start
adding your other bits. In your position, and unless the little 10 gig HD is
absolutely required, i'd probably bump that from the system just for airflow
and convienience sake.

You can be sure however that your problem is absolutely confined to the
bios, and so sifting through all avalable boot orders will eventually find
you your required solution.

Alright, i'm a maths student, probability is on my side with that last
statement, not time!

Bushy

SATA Boot drive NOT! Actually that's only half true. As long as there's no
major malfunction it boots fine from that drive.

After the floppy disaster I spent the day setting up all the drives
correctly
according to the motherboard directions.

I now have the Drives as primaries, and the DVD,CD as secondary.
But there's 3 hard Drives the floppy, and the DVD and CD, and HP just
added a
virtual drive.

I have
A: Floppy
C: SATA 152 gig boot Master
D: Memorex Dual layer DVD Master
E: HP 9300 CD Slave
F: 300 gig Maxtor IDE 10 gig IDE Maxtor data HD Master
G: 10 gig Maxtor IDE Slave
H: HP removable disk 0 bytes ?????

D and E chained to IDE secondary
F and G chained to IDE primary

Used to boot and not be able to find any of the drives on the 1st page
boot
screen , but it still booted despite that and never lost a drive till I
had to
install the OS again.

Now it identifies all the drives and accessories at bootup [takes a bit
longer
now] on the 1st boot page, and the 2nd boot page that shows primary
secondary,
they're missing. This might be interesting to fix also, but doesn't seem
to
affect anything.

I already found out how to fix it if there's a major crash that screws the
motherboard settings again. Something that really shouldn't happen, but it
has.

When it boots and says can't find OS that's when it starts looking for the
OS
on A: Oh yeah, an OS that takes up more than a gig of HD on a 1.44 meg
floppy.

How Do I get the SATA C: to replace A: the floppy when the next crash
occurs ?
Or is A: just the way the motherboard configures it's defaults ?

Well, how do you have the boot order configured in BIOS?

And it's NOT looking for an OS that takes up more than a GB on a
1.44MB floppy. The BIOS has no idea what OS you want to run or load.
It's just looking for any OS on each device you have listed in your
"Boot Device Priority" in the "Boot" section of your BIOS setup. If
you instruct it to look first at A:, but it finds no OS there, then it
will automatically look for an OS on the next device on your list, and
so on.
A: is the traditional default for the first device. The list usually
reads "First Boot Device: Removable; Second Boot Device: Hard disk;
Third Boot Device: CDROM."
Under "Hard Disks," you can list the order in which you want your hard
drives to be queried.

Ron

 

[Husky]

SATA Boot drive NOT! Actually that's only half true. As long as there's no
major malfunction it boots fine from that drive.

After the floppy disaster I spent the day setting up all the drives correctly
according to the motherboard directions.

I now have the Drives as primaries, and the DVD,CD as secondary.
But there's 3 hard Drives the floppy, and the DVD and CD, and HP just added a
virtual drive.

I have
A: Floppy
C: SATA 152 gig boot Master
D: Memorex Dual layer DVD Master
E: HP 9300 CD Slave
F: 300 gig Maxtor IDE 10 gig IDE Maxtor data HD Master
G: 10 gig Maxtor IDE Slave
H: HP removable disk 0 bytes ?????

D and E chained to IDE secondary
F and G chained to IDE primary

Used to boot and not be able to find any of the drives on the 1st page boot
screen , but it still booted despite that and never lost a drive till I had to
install the OS again.

Now it identifies all the drives and accessories at bootup [takes a bit longer
now] on the 1st boot page, and the 2nd boot page that shows primary secondary,
they're missing. This might be interesting to fix also, but doesn't seem to
affect anything.

I already found out how to fix it if there's a major crash that screws the
motherboard settings again. Something that really shouldn't happen, but it has.

When it boots and says can't find OS that's when it starts looking for the OS
on A: Oh yeah, an OS that takes up more than a gig of HD on a 1.44 meg floppy.

How Do I get the SATA C: to replace A: the floppy when the next crash occurs ?
Or is A: just the way the motherboard configures it's defaults ?

Well, how do you have the boot order configured in BIOS?

And it's NOT looking for an OS that takes up more than a GB on a
1.44MB floppy. The BIOS has no idea what OS you want to run or load.
It's just looking for any OS on each device you have listed in your
"Boot Device Priority" in the "Boot" section of your BIOS setup. If
you instruct it to look first at A:, but it finds no OS there, then it
will automatically look for an OS on the next device on your list, and
so on.
A: is the traditional default for the first device. The list usually
reads "First Boot Device: Removable; Second Boot Device: Hard disk;
Third Boot Device: CDROM."
Under "Hard Disks," you can list the order in which you want your hard
drives to be queried.

Well that won't help then, if a major crash occurs again, the asus will revert
to looking for A: every time huh ?
I have it set to boot correctly. But last major crash screwed up the Asus
Settings where it asked me to hit F2 to revert to defaults or F1 to configure.
I was in no mood to play so I hit F2.
And it couldn't find the OS so I had to play.

 

[peterk]

No
It will look where you tell it to look by means of the Bios settings.If you
were silly enough to use default BIOS settings instead of taking the time to
redo your settings(which I hope you write down so you can duplicate them
next time) you deserve to get the shit scared out of you with a boot
failure.
Its just a bloody machine............ if you input shit you will get shit in
return.
peterk

--
It's so much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about
the problem

SATA Boot drive NOT! Actually that's only half true. As long as there's
no
major malfunction it boots fine from that drive.

After the floppy disaster I spent the day setting up all the drives
correctly
according to the motherboard directions.

I now have the Drives as primaries, and the DVD,CD as secondary.
But there's 3 hard Drives the floppy, and the DVD and CD, and HP just
added a
virtual drive.

I have
A: Floppy
C: SATA 152 gig boot Master
D: Memorex Dual layer DVD Master
E: HP 9300 CD Slave
F: 300 gig Maxtor IDE 10 gig IDE Maxtor data HD Master
G: 10 gig Maxtor IDE Slave
H: HP removable disk 0 bytes ?????

D and E chained to IDE secondary
F and G chained to IDE primary

Used to boot and not be able to find any of the drives on the 1st page
boot
screen , but it still booted despite that and never lost a drive till I
had to
install the OS again.

Now it identifies all the drives and accessories at bootup [takes a bit
longer
now] on the 1st boot page, and the 2nd boot page that shows primary
secondary,
they're missing. This might be interesting to fix also, but doesn't seem
to
affect anything.

I already found out how to fix it if there's a major crash that screws
the
motherboard settings again. Something that really shouldn't happen, but
it has.

When it boots and says can't find OS that's when it starts looking for
the OS
on A: Oh yeah, an OS that takes up more than a gig of HD on a 1.44 meg
floppy.

How Do I get the SATA C: to replace A: the floppy when the next crash
occurs ?
Or is A: just the way the motherboard configures it's defaults ?

Well, how do you have the boot order configured in BIOS?

And it's NOT looking for an OS that takes up more than a GB on a
1.44MB floppy. The BIOS has no idea what OS you want to run or load.
It's just looking for any OS on each device you have listed in your
"Boot Device Priority" in the "Boot" section of your BIOS setup. If
you instruct it to look first at A:, but it finds no OS there, then it
will automatically look for an OS on the next device on your list, and
so on.
A: is the traditional default for the first device. The list usually
reads "First Boot Device: Removable; Second Boot Device: Hard disk;
Third Boot Device: CDROM."
Under "Hard Disks," you can list the order in which you want your hard
drives to be queried.

Well that won't help then, if a major crash occurs again, the asus will
revert
to looking for A: every time huh ?
I have it set to boot correctly. But last major crash screwed up the Asus
Settings where it asked me to hit F2 to revert to defaults or F1 to
configure.
I was in no mood to play so I hit F2.
And it couldn't find the OS so I had to play.

Ron

 

[milleron]

SATA Boot drive NOT! Actually that's only half true. As long as there's no
major malfunction it boots fine from that drive.

After the floppy disaster I spent the day setting up all the drives correctly
according to the motherboard directions.

I now have the Drives as primaries, and the DVD,CD as secondary.
But there's 3 hard Drives the floppy, and the DVD and CD, and HP just added a
virtual drive.

I have
A: Floppy
C: SATA 152 gig boot Master
D: Memorex Dual layer DVD Master
E: HP 9300 CD Slave
F: 300 gig Maxtor IDE 10 gig IDE Maxtor data HD Master
G: 10 gig Maxtor IDE Slave
H: HP removable disk 0 bytes ?????

D and E chained to IDE secondary
F and G chained to IDE primary

Used to boot and not be able to find any of the drives on the 1st page boot
screen , but it still booted despite that and never lost a drive till I had to
install the OS again.

Now it identifies all the drives and accessories at bootup [takes a bit longer
now] on the 1st boot page, and the 2nd boot page that shows primary secondary,
they're missing. This might be interesting to fix also, but doesn't seem to
affect anything.

I already found out how to fix it if there's a major crash that screws the
motherboard settings again. Something that really shouldn't happen, but it has.

When it boots and says can't find OS that's when it starts looking for the OS
on A: Oh yeah, an OS that takes up more than a gig of HD on a 1.44 meg floppy.

How Do I get the SATA C: to replace A: the floppy when the next crash occurs ?
Or is A: just the way the motherboard configures it's defaults ?

Well, how do you have the boot order configured in BIOS?

And it's NOT looking for an OS that takes up more than a GB on a
1.44MB floppy. The BIOS has no idea what OS you want to run or load.
It's just looking for any OS on each device you have listed in your
"Boot Device Priority" in the "Boot" section of your BIOS setup. If
you instruct it to look first at A:, but it finds no OS there, then it
will automatically look for an OS on the next device on your list, and
so on.
A: is the traditional default for the first device. The list usually
reads "First Boot Device: Removable; Second Boot Device: Hard disk;
Third Boot Device: CDROM."
Under "Hard Disks," you can list the order in which you want your hard
drives to be queried.

Well that won't help then, if a major crash occurs again, the asus will revert
to looking for A: every time huh ?
I have it set to boot correctly. But last major crash screwed up the Asus
Settings where it asked me to hit F2 to revert to defaults or F1 to configure.
I was in no mood to play so I hit F2.
And it couldn't find the OS so I had to play.

That's probably a different problem. Assuming that there are no other
problems, reverting to the A: drive should allow your computer to boot
just fine. Even if the boot order is defaulted back to looking to the
A: drive first, then, finding no OS there, the BIOS should proceed on
to your HD. If it doesn't find an OS on that drive, then it suggests
that your MBR was corrupted during the major crash.

I actually have my BIOS set to look first to the A: drive, and it
boots from the HD quite transparently.

Can you please tell us what you do to recover in this situation?

Ron

 

[Husky]

SATA Boot drive NOT! Actually that's only half true. As long as there's no
major malfunction it boots fine from that drive.

After the floppy disaster I spent the day setting up all the drives correctly
according to the motherboard directions.

I now have the Drives as primaries, and the DVD,CD as secondary.
But there's 3 hard Drives the floppy, and the DVD and CD, and HP just added a
virtual drive.

I have
A: Floppy
C: SATA 152 gig boot Master
D: Memorex Dual layer DVD Master
E: HP 9300 CD Slave
F: 300 gig Maxtor IDE HD Master
G: 10 gig Maxtor IDE Slave
H: HP removable disk 0 bytes ?????

D and E chained to IDE secondary
F and G chained to IDE primary

Used to boot and not be able to find any of the drives on the 1st page boot
screen , but it still booted despite that and never lost a drive till I had to
install the OS again.

Now it identifies all the drives and accessories at bootup [takes a bit longer
now] on the 1st boot page, and the 2nd boot page that shows primary secondary,
they're missing. This might be interesting to fix also, but doesn't seem to
affect anything.

I already found out how to fix it if there's a major crash that screws the
motherboard settings again. Something that really shouldn't happen, but it has.

When it boots and says can't find OS that's when it starts looking for the OS
on A: Oh yeah, an OS that takes up more than a gig of HD on a 1.44 meg floppy.

How Do I get the SATA C: to replace A: the floppy when the next crash occurs ?
Or is A: just the way the motherboard configures it's defaults ?

Well, how do you have the boot order configured in BIOS?

And it's NOT looking for an OS that takes up more than a GB on a
1.44MB floppy. The BIOS has no idea what OS you want to run or load.
It's just looking for any OS on each device you have listed in your
"Boot Device Priority" in the "Boot" section of your BIOS setup. If
you instruct it to look first at A:, but it finds no OS there, then it
will automatically look for an OS on the next device on your list, and
so on.
A: is the traditional default for the first device. The list usually
reads "First Boot Device: Removable; Second Boot Device: Hard disk;
Third Boot Device: CDROM."
Under "Hard Disks," you can list the order in which you want your hard
drives to be queried.

Well that won't help then, if a major crash occurs again, the asus will revert
to looking for A: every time huh ?
I have it set to boot correctly. But last major crash screwed up the Asus
Settings where it asked me to hit F2 to revert to defaults or F1 to configure.
I was in no mood to play so I hit F2.
And it couldn't find the OS so I had to play.

That's probably a different problem. Assuming that there are no other
problems, reverting to the A: drive should allow your computer to boot
just fine. Even if the boot order is defaulted back to looking to the
A: drive first, then, finding no OS there, the BIOS should proceed on
to your HD. If it doesn't find an OS on that drive, then it suggests
that your MBR was corrupted during the major crash.

I actually have my BIOS set to look first to the A: drive, and it
boots from the HD quite transparently.

Can you please tell us what you do to recover in this situation?

Some crash reset the Asus. The way it looks is A:, then D: DVD, and G: 10 gig.
Which is why I would like to find a way to set C: The SATA as the 1st place or
at least in the chain to look in the asus Default settings. It would save this
reconfiguring at bad crashes.
It looks to 3 drives that have diddly on them.
But we're talking default settings F2 vs config settings. I'd like to get C:
set in the Defaults not just my special setup.

 

[milleron]

SATA Boot drive NOT! Actually that's only half true. As long as there's no
major malfunction it boots fine from that drive.

After the floppy disaster I spent the day setting up all the drives correctly
according to the motherboard directions.

I now have the Drives as primaries, and the DVD,CD as secondary.
But there's 3 hard Drives the floppy, and the DVD and CD, and HP just added a
virtual drive.

I have
A: Floppy
C: SATA 152 gig boot Master
D: Memorex Dual layer DVD Master
E: HP 9300 CD Slave
F: 300 gig Maxtor IDE HD Master
G: 10 gig Maxtor IDE Slave
H: HP removable disk 0 bytes ?????

D and E chained to IDE secondary
F and G chained to IDE primary

Used to boot and not be able to find any of the drives on the 1st page boot
screen , but it still booted despite that and never lost a drive till I had to
install the OS again.

Now it identifies all the drives and accessories at bootup [takes a bit longer
now] on the 1st boot page, and the 2nd boot page that shows primary secondary,
they're missing. This might be interesting to fix also, but doesn't seem to
affect anything.

I already found out how to fix it if there's a major crash that screws the
motherboard settings again. Something that really shouldn't happen, but it has.

When it boots and says can't find OS that's when it starts looking for the OS
on A: Oh yeah, an OS that takes up more than a gig of HD on a 1.44 meg floppy.

How Do I get the SATA C: to replace A: the floppy when the next crash occurs ?
Or is A: just the way the motherboard configures it's defaults ?

Well, how do you have the boot order configured in BIOS?

And it's NOT looking for an OS that takes up more than a GB on a
1.44MB floppy. The BIOS has no idea what OS you want to run or load.
It's just looking for any OS on each device you have listed in your
"Boot Device Priority" in the "Boot" section of your BIOS setup. If
you instruct it to look first at A:, but it finds no OS there, then it
will automatically look for an OS on the next device on your list, and
so on.
A: is the traditional default for the first device. The list usually
reads "First Boot Device: Removable; Second Boot Device: Hard disk;
Third Boot Device: CDROM."
Under "Hard Disks," you can list the order in which you want your hard
drives to be queried.
Well that won't help then, if a major crash occurs again, the asus will revert
to looking for A: every time huh ?
I have it set to boot correctly. But last major crash screwed up the Asus
Settings where it asked me to hit F2 to revert to defaults or F1 to configure.
I was in no mood to play so I hit F2.
And it couldn't find the OS so I had to play.

That's probably a different problem. Assuming that there are no other
problems, reverting to the A: drive should allow your computer to boot
just fine. Even if the boot order is defaulted back to looking to the
A: drive first, then, finding no OS there, the BIOS should proceed on
to your HD. If it doesn't find an OS on that drive, then it suggests
that your MBR was corrupted during the major crash.

I actually have my BIOS set to look first to the A: drive, and it
boots from the HD quite transparently.

Can you please tell us what you do to recover in this situation?

Some crash reset the Asus. The way it looks is A:, then D: DVD, and G: 10 gig.
Which is why I would like to find a way to set C: The SATA as the 1st place or
at least in the chain to look in the asus Default settings. It would save this
reconfiguring at bad crashes.
It looks to 3 drives that have diddly on them.
But we're talking default settings F2 vs config settings. I'd like to get C:
set in the Defaults not just my special setup.

Well, I don't think you can change the defaults without literally
editing your BIOS, something that's not impossible but is best done by
an elite expert. I don't understand why your C: drive isn't in your
default list somewhere. On my system, every drive I have is on the
list somewhere. The BIOS just keeps going down the list until it
finds an operating system, and it does this every time I reboot.
Again, you shouldn't need to get your C: drive, which you indicated
was a SATA to replace your floppy. You just need to get it on the
list. Can you tell us if you have "Boot Drive Priority" and "Hard
Disk" submenus under the "Boot" menu in your BIOS Setup? If so, can
you tell us that the default settings for each are?


Ron

 

[Husky]

Well, I don't think you can change the defaults without literally
editing your BIOS, something that's not impossible but is best done by
an elite expert. I don't understand why your C: drive isn't in your
default list somewhere. On my system, every drive I have is on the
list somewhere. The BIOS just keeps going down the list until it
finds an operating system, and it does this every time I reboot.
Again, you shouldn't need to get your C: drive, which you indicated
was a SATA to replace your floppy. You just need to get it on the
list. Can you tell us if you have "Boot Drive Priority" and "Hard
Disk" submenus under the "Boot" menu in your BIOS Setup? If so, can
you tell us that the default settings for each are?


Ron

The asus ignores it in the default settings. I'm guessing because despite being
a HD, it's also the only SATA And a whole different connection from the other 2
HD's.
On defaults, the order of boot says A: floppy, G: maxtor 10 gig, D: DVD. And
not an OS anywhere to be seen except C:.

Just as well, if it ever happens again, I hate the Asus logo screen. I want to
see what's happening right or wrong.
And defaults ALWAYS turn that logo on, needing a reboot and setup anyway's.

So 2nd screen

scanning for devices

Primary Master not found
Primary Slave not found
Secondary Master not found
Secondary Slave not found

Though it looks like redundancy to me, since it just went thru that search for
ALL devices, Mice, USB, Keyboard, drives. and found every drive. Can't recall
if it saw the floppy on the 1st page or not.

Why does it 1st find them and identify them by manufacturer and model, then 2nd
page it comes up with nothing.

What should the primary master, slave etc.. be showing ?

 

[peterk]

Normally the C drive would equate to HDD-0 in the Bios.
Which ASUS Mobo are you playing with??
peterk