P4P800 Booting from CDROM?

[ed_lupine]

I have a P4P800 Deluxe that has 4 hard drives on the internal IDE
controllers and 2 CDROM drives on a Maxtor (Promise) PCI UDMA 100
controller card.

Windows XP see's all the drives fine.

However, I can't seem to be able to boot from the CDROM drives.

I get a selection in the BIOS boot menu for "D0" which would be the
first CD on the Maxtor, however when I select it as the first boot
device it doesn't work.

I get a message saying" Insert Media into Boot Device" or something
similar.

I do notice that on normal boot up the Maxtor banner screen says BIOS
not installed. No hard drives detected, however I see the 2 CDROM drives
listed as D0 and D1.

Any ideas?

TIA

Ed

 

[Ben Pope]

I have a P4P800 Deluxe that has 4 hard drives on the internal IDE
controllers and 2 CDROM drives on a Maxtor (Promise) PCI UDMA 100
controller card.

Windows XP see's all the drives fine.

However, I can't seem to be able to boot from the CDROM drives.

I get a selection in the BIOS boot menu for "D0" which would be the
first CD on the Maxtor, however when I select it as the first boot
device it doesn't work.

I get a message saying" Insert Media into Boot Device" or something
similar.

My discussion below assumes you have bootable media in the CD drive. If
not, you're a fool - try it

I do notice that on normal boot up the Maxtor banner screen says BIOS
not installed. No hard drives detected, however I see the 2 CDROM drives
listed as D0 and D1.

Any ideas?

The easy and obvious solution is to swap a CD drive on the Maxtor with a
hard drive on the onboard controller... this will likely cause you cabling
issues (it's never as easy as it could be). In order to reduce the cabling
issues, you could swap both CD drives to the internal controller.

In order to get it working without shifting cables around, it might be worth
trying a few of the other boot options "boot other devices" or "SCSI
whatever", would be my first two guesses.

I'll assume you have the latest BIOS (which will hopefully have the latest
Maxtor Controller BIOS in it).

Other than that, I dunno... never used that board.

Ben

 

[ed_lupine]

My discussion below assumes you have bootable media in the CD drive. If
not, you're a fool - try it

Yea it's bootable media
I tried several different CD's that I know are bootable.

The easy and obvious solution is to swap a CD drive on the Maxtor with a
hard drive on the onboard controller... this will likely cause you cabling
issues (it's never as easy as it could be). In order to reduce the cabling
issues, you could swap both CD drives to the internal controller.

Yea I know, but I'm trying to avoid doing that because the purpose is to
install Linux and once Linux is installed it's a PITA to move everything
back again and change all the mount points etc.

A real PITA

In order to get it working without shifting cables around, it might be worth
trying a few of the other boot options "boot other devices" or "SCSI
whatever", would be my first two guesses.

SCSI.
That's a good idea.
I'll give it a try.

I'll assume you have the latest BIOS (which will hopefully have the latest
Maxtor Controller BIOS in it).

Latest BIOS on the Asus but can't say for sure on the Maxtor, but I have
been able to boot with it on my last board which was an Abit board.

Other than that, I dunno... never used that board.

Ben

Ok..

Ed

 

[Ben Pope]

Yea I know, but I'm trying to avoid doing that because the purpose is to
install Linux and once Linux is installed it's a PITA to move everything
back again and change all the mount points etc.

A real PITA

A quick mod to fstab... relatively easy compared to Windows!

If you want to be sure you don't get stuck, always leave a live cd around,
so if it no longer boots, you can fire up the live cd, chroot in and mod it.

I use Gentoo and their live cd.

SCSI.
That's a good idea.
I'll give it a try.


Latest BIOS on the Asus but can't say for sure on the Maxtor, but I have
been able to boot with it on my last board which was an Abit board.

Boot from CD with it? Let me get this straight, 'cos I'm not sure about
your board... the Maxtor controller is not built into the motherboard?
OK... looking at the board spec, it would seem to be the case. I was unsure
as I recall it having plenty of places to plug in ATA drives, and the option
of doing RAID on both ATA and SATA... it seems thats all in the ICH5R - no
need for other controllers on the mobo.

If both of those are true, then we can safely rule out the controller itself
as being the problem of booting from CD.

Ben

 

[ed_lupine]

A quick mod to fstab... relatively easy compared to Windows!

Assuming I remember to do it before I switch the drives back, which I
know I won't

If you want to be sure you don't get stuck, always leave a live cd around,
so if it no longer boots, you can fire up the live cd, chroot in and mod it.

I use Gentoo and their live cd.

I use knoppix for that purpose.

Boot from CD with it? Let me get this straight, 'cos I'm not sure about
your board... the Maxtor controller is not built into the motherboard?
OK... looking at the board spec, it would seem to be the case. I was unsure
as I recall it having plenty of places to plug in ATA drives, and the option
of doing RAID on both ATA and SATA... it seems thats all in the ICH5R - no
need for other controllers on the mobo.

The card is a seperate PCI card.
The 2 IDE controllers on the motherboard are filled with 4 hard disks.

The 2 CDROM drives are on the Maxtor (really a Promise) PCI card.

That same card, with this same configuration worked on my old Abit
board.

 

[Darkfalz]

I have a P4P800 Deluxe that has 4 hard drives on the internal IDE
controllers and 2 CDROM drives on a Maxtor (Promise) PCI UDMA 100
controller card.

Windows XP see's all the drives fine.

However, I can't seem to be able to boot from the CDROM drives.

Normal, since that's only supported by the onboard IDE controller.

Here is what I suggest. Take that PCI UDMA 100 card out.

Instead, use the VIA RAID IDE for your 4 hard drives (they are UDMA133 and
work very well) - a lot of people don't realise you can do this in a normal
non-RAID configuration! Install the VIA RAID driver obviously for the UDMA
support..

Put your 2 CDROM drives on the onboard Intel IDE controllers (one on each).

That's a perfect setup! And you will be able to boot from your CDROMs no
problem. You shouldn't have to reinstall XP either.

 

[GMAN]

Normal, since that's only supported by the onboard IDE controller.

Here is what I suggest. Take that PCI UDMA 100 card out.

Instead, use the VIA RAID IDE for your 4 hard drives (they are UDMA133 and
work very well) - a lot of people don't realise you can do this in a normal
non-RAID configuration! Install the VIA RAID driver obviously for the UDMA
support..


Put your 2 CDROM drives on the onboard Intel IDE controllers (one on each).

That's a perfect setup! And you will be able to boot from your CDROMs no
problem. You shouldn't have to reinstall XP either.

Like darkfalz says, I have 2 HD's on the primary onboard, 2 cd drives on the
secondary onboard, then 4 more HD's on the 4 raid connectors in non raid
mode. It just runs the 4 HD's as standard ATA-133 mode.

 

[Darkfalz]

Like darkfalz says, I have 2 HD's on the primary onboard, 2 cd drives on
the

secondary onboard, then 4 more HD's on the 4 raid connectors in non raid
mode. It just runs the 4 HD's as standard ATA-133 mode.

Wow, your case must be pretty big. I only have 3 3.5 bays including the
floppy bay. If I wanted to add another HDD I'd have to put them in the 5.25
bays.

 

[ed_lupine]

Normal, since that's only supported by the onboard IDE controller.

Here is what I suggest. Take that PCI UDMA 100 card out.

Instead, use the VIA RAID IDE for your 4 hard drives (they are UDMA133 and
work very well) - a lot of people don't realise you can do this in a normal
non-RAID configuration! Install the VIA RAID driver obviously for the UDMA
support..

Put your 2 CDROM drives on the onboard Intel IDE controllers (one on each).

That's a perfect setup! And you will be able to boot from your CDROMs no
problem. You shouldn't have to reinstall XP either.

Thanks guys!!!!

Great advice and it worked out perfectly!!

I didn't want to have that PCI card in there if I didn't have to and you
guys provided the perfect solution.

Take care!!

Ed

 

[Darkfalz]

Thanks guys!!!!

Great advice and it worked out perfectly!!

I didn't want to have that PCI card in there if I didn't have to and you
guys provided the perfect solution.

Take care!!

You're welcome. Good thing you got the deluxe, isn't it

 

[ed_lupine]

You're welcome. Good thing you got the deluxe, isn't it

It's ironic too because I was originally going to go for the non deluxe
model!

But that little voice inside me said.............

Sometimes it's best to listen to that little guy once in a while

ed

 

[Darkfalz]

It's ironic too because I was originally going to go for the non deluxe

model!

I was going to get the non-deluxe too, but they didn't have any in stock. So
I just got the deluxe. Heehee.