A7N8X-E and Adaptec Card not working with Sata Drive

[Jim]

I have an Adaptec 3920U Scsi Card driving 2 Scsi Hard Drives.
Both Id's set to 0 and 1 respectively.
I have fitted a single Samsung Sata 160G Hard drive, but am unable to get
the drivers loaded correctly in XP.
It comes with a Code 10 error. The bios is set to boot from a Scsi card, if
I set it to boot
from a Raid Card the Sata bios comes first and won't finish loading due to
memory load, a problem known with
this Motherboard.
I changed the ID for my existing Scsi Drives to 2 and 3 as the Sata ID is
set at 0,
and as far as I can see there is no way of changing the ID of the Sata with
a jumper
on the drive case.
Has anyone had this problem before?
Jim

 

[Aldo Larrabiata]

Had problems with both my Adaptec AHA2940UW and a SATA Disk.
SATA is harwware declared (jumper on the A7N8X Deluxe), SCSI HD is declared
as first boot drive in the Setup. SCSI primary partitions are declared as
non-active in Partition Magic or hidden. And in adition,

the SCSI BIOS _ must be disabled _

otherwise there's a conflict booting the SATA and the SCSI through its Bios
in the same time. Windows standard drivers allow the SCSI disks to be
visible under Windows (98SE). The problem is that those disks aren't visible
from DOS. To solve this issue, I downloaded a set of 16-bit drivers from the
Adaptec site but I didn't installed them yet. This doesn't cause any trouble
with Windows anyway.

Hope this will help you

 

[Jim]

Hi Aldo
Thanks for your reply.
Yes, it is the conflict of booting Sata and Scsi at the same time, but I do
need
to select any of the 2 Scsi drives or the Sata so disabling the Scsi bios is
not an
option.
How can I solve the conflict at bootup?
I am using XP.
Many thanks for your help.
Jim

 

[Aldo Larrabiata]

Seems to be a confusion: You've two BIOSes:
1- The PC setup calls the MoBo BIOS. You have to select SCSI as first boot
drive.
2- Then during the boot, you may have a message telling to press "Ctrl A" to
call the 'SCSI Adaptec BIOS setup'. There's a second BIOS on your SCSI
Adapter board. This message may not appear, depending on the configuration
you made. This is an option.

Now, within the _ADAPTEC_ setup, you must disable the SCSI BIOS itself. The
SCSI disks management will no longer be ensured by the Adaptec embedded
firmware but by external drivers. (Better to display the 'Ctrl A message'
for next time !)
Note also that depending on your keyboard language, the key sequence is
different, for Latin countries, it is "CtrlQ".

This SCSI BIOS being disabled, a driver is necessary in order Windows can
recognize your SCSI disks. I think it will install it automatically during
next boot when it will find the new peripherals. If not, you'll need to do
it manually. Drivers can be downloaded from the Adaptec site. At least this
is true for DOS, 98SE, Millenium and 2000. I've unfortunately no experience
with XP.

Proceeding in such a way will eliminate the conflict you have with the SATA
HD.

On top of that, during the boot, a box will probably display, related to the
SATA RAID configuration. Since you have a single SATA HD, you're not using
RAID, you should ignore it (I did under 98SE). Again, I don't know the XP
process. Don't rely on me for that last topic.

Does this make things a litthe bit more clear ?
Good luck

 

[Jim]

Hi Aldo
It is a Scsci 39320 Raid Ultra 320 Card, although I am not using it in that
mode, only
single ended with 2 SCSI hard drives in tow!
I have searched the bios but cannot find any way of disabling it, unless
you know where it is, of course. Any ideas?
Regards
Jim

 

[Aldo Larrabiata]

First disable all SATA options on the MoBo and in the BIOS Setup.

Question: Did you succeed to enter within the SCSI setup ?

If not: Just after the POST, some seconds after the password is entered, if
any, or the memory is tested, the PC finds the SCSI adapter board and
displays a message like "APAPTEC SCSI AHA 39320 ....."
It's time to simultaneously depress Ctrl & A keys (Ctrl Q on an AZERTY
keyboard).
A menu is displayed. I haven't the same adapter than you but there should be
a line labelled 'SCSI adapter configuration' or something like that. May be
an advanced options containing the line "host adapter BIOS" or "SCSI
Controller INT13 Support" (**). Disable it. Take this opportunity to enable
the CTRL-A message. Validate and reboot.
(**) I just downloaded the 'Adaptec Ultra320 SCSI Cards User’s Guide' the
option is "SCSI Controller INT13 Support" .
They say:
SCSI Controller INT 13 Support—(Default: Enabled) This
option controls the state of the BIOS at POST time. The
following settings are available:
[...]
Disabled:NOT Scan—Select this option if all the devices on
the SCSI bus (for example, CD-ROM drives) are controlled
by software drivers and do not need the BIOS, and you do
not want the BIOS to scan the SCSI bus. SCSISelect remains
available if needed.
[...]

Next boot windows will search the right driver and install it.

When this is done, reboot again and go to your board setup to enable SATA or
place the jumper on the MoBo. Configure the SATA setup, windows will ask for
drivers. If yes, keep them on a floppy or it will install them. I don't know
anything about XP.

If you don't have the manual, you may ask ADAPTEC knowledge database:
http://adaptec-tic.adaptec.com/cgi-bin/adaptec_tic.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.p
hp?p_sid=_g4lrqyh&p_lva=&p_sp=&p_li=
or ADAPTEC downloads
http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/driverindex.jsp?source=menu

There are lot od 39320 options. What exactly is yours ?

Bye