P4C800-E Deluxe arbitrarily changes boot order

[Bob Davis]

I just installed a P4C800-E Deluxe in a new build for a friend, my first
experience with Asus boards, and have incurred an odd problem. The drives
are attached like this:

Boot: WD Raptor SATA (C

IDE1: CD burner (master), 40gb HD (slave) in mobil racks for cloning in
Norton Ghost (never in machine except during cloning outside Windows XP).

IDE2: 250gb WD2500JB (D


The problem is that after using the 40gb drive in the mobil rack for cloning
once per week, the bios decides to swap the boot order on the SATA and IDE2.
IDE2 has no OS, but every time the Ghost drive is inserted and seen by the
bios the boot order changes. This computer is in the hands of a novice, and
I'd prefer if she didn't need to go into the bios every time she does a
cloning operation to change the boot order back to its proper place.

I haven't been able to determine what bios version she has, but I'll work on
it. In the meantime, if anyone has a tip on how to get around this obvious
bug, please let me know! TIA.

 

[JBM]

I just installed a P4C800-E Deluxe in a new build for a friend, my first
experience with Asus boards, and have incurred an odd problem. The drives
are attached like this:

Boot: WD Raptor SATA (C

IDE1: CD burner (master), 40gb HD (slave) in mobil racks for cloning in
Norton Ghost (never in machine except during cloning outside Windows XP).

IDE2: 250gb WD2500JB (D


The problem is that after using the 40gb drive in the mobil rack for cloning
once per week, the bios decides to swap the boot order on the SATA and IDE2.
IDE2 has no OS, but every time the Ghost drive is inserted and seen by the
bios the boot order changes. This computer is in the hands of a novice, and
I'd prefer if she didn't need to go into the bios every time she does a
cloning operation to change the boot order back to its proper place.

I haven't been able to determine what bios version she has, but I'll work on
it. In the meantime, if anyone has a tip on how to get around this obvious
bug, please let me know! TIA.

That's the same problem I've been having with
my P4C800-Deluxe. It's been occurring with
every BIOS version I've tried. I was wondering
if it was fixed on the E version, guess not.

 

[Bob Davis]

work

That's the same problem I've been having with
my P4C800-Deluxe. It's been occurring with
every BIOS version I've tried. I was wondering
if it was fixed on the E version, guess not.

It's ridiculous for them to let something slide by this long. I'm sorry I
selected this board for this person, as she clearly doesn't need to be
snooping around in the bios unnecessarily. I'll keep an eye here in case
someone comes up with a fix.

 

[Mark]

My previous pc did this. You have a much more complicated setup than
what I had so my problem might not be yours... Mine seemed to be due
to adding too much stuff to the pc over the years without upgrading
the power supply. How many watts ya got?

 

[John]

I just installed a P4C800-E Deluxe in a new build for a friend, my first
experience with Asus boards, and have incurred an odd problem. The drives
are attached like this:

Boot: WD Raptor SATA (C

IDE1: CD burner (master), 40gb HD (slave) in mobil racks for cloning in
Norton Ghost (never in machine except during cloning outside Windows XP).

IDE2: 250gb WD2500JB (D


The problem is that after using the 40gb drive in the mobil rack for cloning
once per week, the bios decides to swap the boot order on the SATA and IDE2.
IDE2 has no OS, but every time the Ghost drive is inserted and seen by the
bios the boot order changes. This computer is in the hands of a novice, and
I'd prefer if she didn't need to go into the bios every time she does a
cloning operation to change the boot order back to its proper place.

I haven't been able to determine what bios version she has, but I'll work on
it. In the meantime, if anyone has a tip on how to get around this obvious
bug, please let me know! TIA.

I don't have a solution, but wondered what would happen if you tried
swapping
the 40GB drive to IDE2. My idea being to find a setup where the bios's
default
order is the same order you want.

Or add an IDE controller card and see if that helps

 

[ht]

That's the same problem I've been having with
my P4C800-Deluxe. It's been occurring with
every BIOS version I've tried.

I've noticed that when I have my USB pen connected to a USB port
during boot, the BIOS automatically selects it as the boot drive, and
I have to go into the BIOS and change it back for the boot to work the
way I set it up. Seems that the BIOS somehow looks for external boot
devices and gives them a higher priority during the boot.

Why this should affect the relationship between IDE and SATA drives
beats me, though.


Regards,

Hans-Henrik

 

[Bob Davis]

480w Antec Truepower.

My previous pc did this. You have a much more complicated setup than
what I had so my problem might not be yours... Mine seemed to be due
to adding too much stuff to the pc over the years without upgrading
the power supply. How many watts ya got?

 

[Bob Davis]

I don't have a solution, but wondered what would happen if you tried
swapping the 40GB drive to IDE2. My idea being to find a setup where the bios's
default order is the same order you want.

I think changing to IDE2 will change nothing since it'll still see the same
drives in the boot sequence. The problem seems to be that when something
changes, i.e. the Ghost drive being pulled from the group, it automatically
puts the only remaining IDE drive as the first boot device, regardless of
the fact that the SATA drive is selected as such and the Ghost drive isn't
even in the boot sequence.

Or add an IDE controller card and see if that helps

This might work, but would add time to the boot sequence for the external
IDE controller bios to initialize. But I wonder if it would do so if no
drives were attached?

I have an idea that just bloomed: Take the 250gb drive on IDE2 out of the
boot order altogether. Perhaps that will not force the change if there are
no other HD's in the boot order.

 

[JBM]

I think changing to IDE2 will change nothing since it'll still see the same
drives in the boot sequence. The problem seems to be that when something
changes, i.e. the Ghost drive being pulled from the group, it automatically
puts the only remaining IDE drive as the first boot device, regardless of
the fact that the SATA drive is selected as such and the Ghost drive isn't
even in the boot sequence.


This might work, but would add time to the boot sequence for the external
IDE controller bios to initialize. But I wonder if it would do so if no
drives were attached?

I have an idea that just bloomed: Take the 250gb drive on IDE2 out of the
boot order altogether. Perhaps that will not force the change if there are
no other HD's in the boot order.

When I removed all the hard drives but one from
the boot order they were all added back on the
next reboot.
Did it work for you?

 

[Bob Davis]

When I removed all the hard drives but one from
the boot order they were all added back on the
next reboot.
Did it work for you?

The machine is at another location and I won't be able to try it 'til
tomorrow (Monday) AM. Will report back later.

What if you set the CD-ROM as the third device? IOW, in my case: First =
Floppy, second = SATA, third = CD-ROM. At this point the 250gb HD is #3,
and it wants to arbitrarily swap #2 and #3 whenever there is a HD change, as
when the Ghost HD is removed from the mobil rack.

 

[JBM]

The machine is at another location and I won't be able to try it 'til
tomorrow (Monday) AM. Will report back later.

What if you set the CD-ROM as the third device? IOW, in my case: First =
Floppy, second = SATA, third = CD-ROM. At this point the 250gb HD is #3,
and it wants to arbitrarily swap #2 and #3 whenever there is a HD change, as
when the Ghost HD is removed from the mobil rack.

The boot order never changes on my system
I have it set to 1:Floppy 2:CDrom 3:HD
My problem is that if I add a HD that's bootable
it puts that drive as the first bootable HD under the
Boot / Hard drives menu. Which puts it as the
HD to be booted in the Boot order devices menu.
Same thing to the CDrom menu if I add or remove
a cdrom. The only external HD I've been able to
add and remove without it effecting the boot is
a firewire drive, which can't be booted from. But that had it's own set of
problems.

 

[John]

I think changing to IDE2 will change nothing since it'll still see the same
drives in the boot sequence. The problem seems to be that when something
changes, i.e. the Ghost drive being pulled from the group, it automatically
puts the only remaining IDE drive as the first boot device, regardless of
the fact that the SATA drive is selected as such and the Ghost drive isn't
even in the boot sequence.


This might work, but would add time to the boot sequence for the external
IDE controller bios to initialize. But I wonder if it would do so if no
drives were attached?

I have an idea that just bloomed: Take the 250gb drive on IDE2 out of the
boot order altogether. Perhaps that will not force the change if there are
no other HD's in the boot order.

Some of those controller cards take longer to boot with no drives attached
(longer than if one drive is attached).
I think it's because the controller is determined to "find a drive".

 

[Nick (no dashes)]

P4P800 Deluxe - my main drive is a SATA unit, but I also have an IDE
drive and 2 CD-Roms. No floppy.

Like others, the boot order randomly changes- sometimes not for a few
days, sometimes every other boot.

I've tried BIOS revisions 1008 - 1010 and all do it. I don't even need
to plug anything in or out to trigger it.

Incidentally - someone mentioned 'Truepower 480W'. That's what I have!
(Antec TrueBlue specifically). Has it been shown to cause the problem?
They didn't say anything else!

 

[Nick (no dashes)]

480w Antec Truepower.

Ah!!! That's what I have! (Antec TrueBlue 480 specifically). But I got
that on the understanding it would cause me LESS problems - what
specifically is wrong with it? Just the 480 or all of them on this MB?

Details: P4P800 Deluxe - my main drive is a SATA unit, but I also have
an IDE drive and 2 CD-Roms. No floppy.
Like others, the boot order randomly changes- sometimes not for a few
days, sometimes every other boot.
I've tried BIOS revisions 1008 - 1010 and all do it. I don't even need
to plug anything in or out to trigger it.

It's very annoying.

 

[Nick (no dashes)]

Sorry for now tripple posting, but ignore one, both or all of my posting
in this thread - I thought newsreader wasn't working and managed to go
twice!

 

[Bob Davis]

This is one of the best PSU's available, so I doubt if it'd be causing your
problem unless defective. I am sure it isn't the cause of mine.

 

[Bob Davis]

Ended up popping in a UDMA 6 card and thus pulling the drive out of the
system bios--and all is well for now.

Thanks for the replies.