Sata adapter BIOS not executing

[Stuart Palmer]

Hi, I hope someone can help:
I have an ASUS P4b533-E motherboard and I have recently purchased a Serial
Ata drive and adpater, on bootup the Serial Adapter Bios does not run (which
I believe should occur similar to a SCSI adapter) I am hoping someone can
tell me if I need to alter anything in the BIOS). I believe the chipset on
the adapter is a VIA VT6421 though I cannot find any manufacturer marking on
it. I flashed my system BIOS to 1014 with no success.
The adapter looks like the one on ebuyer -
http://image.ebuyer.com/UK/P0066755_C0000035_P0000000.jpg if that helps at
all.
When gettng to the stage of installing the OS, the drive is not detected (I
assume this is because my system bios does not recognise my sata adapter and
thus doesn't know the drive is there.)

Many thx for any help you can offer
Stuart Palmer

 

[MrGrumpy]

There were no instructions included? differing manu. may have different
install procedures.
You need to create a Serial driver floppy disk
You may have to alter/set the boot order in the bios, to detect the adapter
When starting o/s installation there is an F6 option to install third party
drivers ( serial driver) if you miss this you will have to start again.
BTW It may be an idea, if installing o/s on the new serial, to disconnect
any other pata devices, other than cd, untill o/s installed - can avoid
problems with drive letters -

 

[Tim]

It may not have bios extensions and may not be bootable.
The image linked to is too small to tell, but it appears as though there is
only significant 1 IC on the card - bios rom's / eeprom's are normally
separate chips.

- Tim

 

[Stuart Palmer]

Tim,
There are two Sata connectors each side of the IDE one on the image
(Same as mine).
If the drive isn't 'Bootable' how do I get the machine to detect my new
drive? I have this HD I'm using now, with win2K on but when I have installed
thr drivers for the 'Raid controller' that is detected, and leave the card
in, the mahine hangs at the win2K bootup screen (with about 4 block to go) I
have the remove the SATA card and then it boots up fine.

From a conv I have had with a friend, usually the Sata adapter has an
onboard BIOS and that initiates after the system bios, but he suggested that
I may have to mess about with the BIOS, I set my primary Boot item as
'Other/onboard boot device' but still my new HDD isn't detected, i don't
know fi there are other items I need to switch in the main system bios for
my HDD.

Cheers for any more advice
Stu

 

[MrGrumpy]

The Adapter may be identified as scsi on the mobo. bios
You might want to check your new adapter web site for updated driver, and
possibly updated firmware

 

[Mercury]

If the controller is suitable then you should see the disc drive enumerated
at some time during the boot.For a pure SATA (IE non RAID) controller there
may be no configuration at all, no jumpers on the PCI card and everything
should just work - in this case the steps you are taking with the bios are
correct since jut 'cos you have one of these cards you may or may not want
to boot off it.

A bootable add-in controller has to provide a means for the BIOS to 'see' it
and so know to include it as an option for booting. This happens via the
BIOS extensions mentioned on the card (if they are there) - I read once that
they place a fingerprint in there own memory of hexadecimal 0xAA55 for the
bios to see and so to know to call an initialise function - this function
then hooks into the BIOS own Disc Boot code so it becomes included.

The 'least cost' controllers don't come with boot ability. They are intended
for use as add in cards for already running systems. They can be accessed
only by drivers installed at run time.

Do you have any other SATA ports on the system? If so I would use one of
those.

What is the make and model of the PCI card?

- Tim

 

[Paul]

Hi, I hope someone can help:
I have an ASUS P4b533-E motherboard and I have recently purchased a Serial
Ata drive and adpater, on bootup the Serial Adapter Bios does not run (which
I believe should occur similar to a SCSI adapter) I am hoping someone can
tell me if I need to alter anything in the BIOS). I believe the chipset on
the adapter is a VIA VT6421 though I cannot find any manufacturer marking on
it. I flashed my system BIOS to 1014 with no success.
The adapter looks like the one on ebuyer -
http://image.ebuyer.com/UK/P0066755_C0000035_P0000000.jpg if that helps at
all.
When gettng to the stage of installing the OS, the drive is not detected (I
assume this is because my system bios does not recognise my sata adapter and
thus doesn't know the drive is there.)

Many thx for any help you can offer
Stuart Palmer

I have read a number of posts complaining about the
issue of adding a third party controller and trying to
boot from it. When RAID BIOSs load early in the POST process,
they use low memory. Apparently there are some pretty tight
limits and what that can mean, is when a third party card is
added to a system, there might not be enough low memory for the
add-in card BIOS to load.

To test this theory, you could try disabling any existing
RAID controller(s) in the system, so that your new card is
the only one attempting to load a BIOS. Over on forums.2cpu.com
where using controller cards is quite common, usually only
the boot disk controller is the only controller card that
has its BIOS enabled. Non-boot disks work fine, as long as
they get a driver loaded via the OS.

Some motherboards have an entry in the BIOS called "INT 19
capture", which is really nothing other than INT 0x13 (Asus
uses 19 decimal notation in the manual, while everyone else
uses 0x13 hexidecimal when talking about INTxx). INT13 services
are apparently what is used when the OS wants the BIOS to
read sectors for it. That should be one of the things that
a RAID BIOS does, as well as providing a GUI interface for
setting up disks at the BIOS level. For example, if you had
a striped boot volume, the RAID BIOS would know the layout
of the two disks, and would fetch the data from the right
area of each disk during the boot process.

So, the only thing I can suggest, is disabling the PDC20276
via the jumper on the board, and then see if the VT6421
RAID BIOS loads. Since your motherboard doesn't appear
to have an "INT 19 capture" option, I don't see any option
that might stop the VT6421 BIOS from loading.

The second post in this thread gives some details on what
devices chew up low memory. I didn't realize so many
device types are responsible:

http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?threadid=29994&highlight=loading+scsi+bios

"Why doesn't the BIOS (Option ROM) for my PCI device show
during boot up?

The cause of the problem is that in order to be PC Compatible,
the Option Rom space is limited to 128K. this is true for any
motherboard with PC compatible BIOS'.

In the common configurations, a newer AGP card (such as any
GeForce4) will require 64K of Option Rom space, so you have only
64K of Option Rom space left to work with for other devices.
Many SCSI , NIC (w/ PXE), IDE Raid and etc., can easily use
another 40 to 64K of Option Rom space for their needs.

By design the Option Rom should shrink down to a smaller run
time code after the initialization code has run. For example,
some Adaptec cards will require 32K to initialize. Then they
shrink down to 12K at run time; whereas some GeForce4 cards
require 64K to initialize and never release to a smaller
amount. Please check with the device manufacturer for the
latest firmware upgrade or ask if they have a smaller Option
Rom available. Again this is a limitation of the PC compatible
specification and not a failure of the motherboard BIOS
itself."

The shrink down thing may mean, that if you have several controller
cards, the slot position each one occupies may play a part in
whether the (dynamically changing) memory map of that 128K area
allows enough space for all "option ROM" to load. If the PDC20276
was given an address decode somewhere in the "middle" of the
PCI slots, then the slot position of your adapter would have made
a difference. However, I don't think motherboards are typically
set up that way - onboard chips are likely outside the slot space,
with an address decode lower than or higher than, all the PCI slot
connectors. Which means, no matter how much you move a PCI card
around, its enumeration order might not change with respect to a
fixed chip like the PDC20276.

If you make any progress, please post back, as I get to read
very few success stories when this problem happens.

HTH,
Paul

 

[milleron]

Tim,
There are two Sata connectors each side of the IDE one on the image
(Same as mine).
If the drive isn't 'Bootable' how do I get the machine to detect my new
drive? I have this HD I'm using now, with win2K on but when I have installed
thr drivers for the 'Raid controller' that is detected, and leave the card
in, the mahine hangs at the win2K bootup screen (with about 4 block to go) I
have the remove the SATA card and then it boots up fine.

A little clarification please. In your original post, you stated that
you were trying to install an OS, but you didn't tell us what you're
really trying to do with this card and drive. Did you mean that you
were trying to REinstall Windows 2K or were you trying to install a
second OS for dual boot?

Also, if you're trying to install an OS (as you said), Mr.Grumpy
already pointed out the fact that you need to hit F6 and feed that
driver disk to the setup program, but you never told us if you'd tried
that.

If there's a "'Raid controller' that is detected," and you've
installed a driver, have you, in fact, created an array of any kind?

What's the brand and model of the card? Have you checked the
manufacturer's Web site for a new driver and to make sure it's
compatible with your MB, Windows 2K, your SATA drive, and to see if
they've an updated driver?

Lastly, you've stated that the new controller card's BIOS doesn't
install, but you haven't stated that the drive is never recognized
during POST. Is the drive, in fact, totally unrecognized, even before
you get into Windows 2K? You mentioned that there is RAID controller
recognized; WHERE is it recognized, in the POST or in the OS?

From a conv I have had with a friend, usually the Sata adapter has an
onboard BIOS and that initiates after the system bios, but he suggested that
I may have to mess about with the BIOS, I set my primary Boot item as
'Other/onboard boot device' but still my new HDD isn't detected, i don't
know fi there are other items I need to switch in the main system bios for
my HDD.

Cheers for any more advice
Stu

Ron

 

[Stuart Palmer]

There are instructions on the cd (but no manual) in a readme.txt file of
which here it below:

----------------
2. Install Windows NT 4.0, 2000, XP, or Server 2003
* Copy all files and directories from the DriverDisk folder to a
floppy disk.
Make sure the following directories and files are copied into the
floppy disk.
A:\
\2003IA32
VIAsprid.inf
VIAsprid.sys
VIAsprid.cat
\Win2000
VIAsprid.inf
VIAsprid.sys
VIAsprid.cat
\Winnt40
VIAsprid.inf
VIAsprid.sys
\WinXP
VIAsprid.inf
VIAsprid.sys
VIAsprid.cat
Txtsetup.oem
VT6421

* Boot system from OS installing CD-ROM.
* Make sure VT6421 BIOS is executed by the system BIOS when POST.
* Press "F6" when OS installer starts running.
* Insert floppy disk.
* Choose the OS device driver wanted for loading.
* Install OS.
* Install RAID utility after OS is installed.

------------------
Everything is fine except the 'Make sure VT6421 BIOS is executed by the
system BIOS when POST.' This is what I don't think is happening and I'm
hoping it's a setting in my ASUS bios to make this action occur.

TIA for any more suggestions
Stu

 

[Stuart Palmer]

Thx Milleron, I'll try to give more info.

Task - Trying to upgrade to winXP (so after I have completed this will
reformat the win2K drive for storage).

When Hitting F6 during the install procedure I can select my raid
controlelr, but then xp installer doesn't display my new drive.
I haven't created an array, I have no idea how to do this.
I also have no idea of the brand of the card, but visually appears to be the
same as the ebuyer image I stated earlier (which indicate it's a microsol
one (on ebuyers site), however, the chip set and driver disk that came
withit indicates it's an VIA VT6421. When I initially booted up in win2k
with this card in, it detected it, I installed thr driver, but now the
machine hangs during the bootup process at the win2K screen (Just trying
different ways to get it to work).

I can't find the new 120gb western digital (WD1200JD) drive being detected
this is what my initial post was about, I imagine I should get a BIOS sata
drive detection message on the screen that detects the drive, I think this
is what is not happening, thus causing all my other problems (i.e drive not
being foudn in XP installtion process even though I have selected the 3rd
party driver.

Does this information help at all? I am totally stuck now. If I try to run
the machine up in win2K with the driver installed, the machine hangs, if I
just try to install XP on this new Sata drive the machine doesn't detect it,
but the fact that win2K detected the card makes me think the cardis working,
just not initallising properly when initially booting.

Cheers for your help with this one,
Stu

 

[Stuart Palmer]

Mercury,
i think this is exactly what is not happening, I'm not seeing this drive
enermation process when booting up the machine.
I am not understanding when you mention 'This happens via the BIOS
extensions mentioned on the card (if they are there)'. Is this something I
need to install?

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=66755
this appears to be my card, I have no other Sata ports, my P4b-533 is about
4+ years old now, and I didn't want the expense of having to get a new
motherboard.

Does that help answer your questions?

Cheers again
Stu

 

[Stuart Palmer]

I'm not sure of the manufacturer of the card - I do know it's
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=66755
this unit (visually), it's using the VIA VT5421 chipset (printed on one of
the chips)

I tried to set my boot device as a SCSI controller, but this didn't detect
the drive either in the XP and in win2K (when I put in my win2K drive that I
am using now to get on the WWW, it hangs up when I'm booting unless I remove
the card.

/
Stu

 

[jb]

Thx Milleron, I'll try to give more info.

Task - Trying to upgrade to winXP (so after I have completed this will
reformat the win2K drive for storage).

When Hitting F6 during the install procedure I can select my raid
controlelr, but then xp installer doesn't display my new drive.

This may have no bearing whatsoever regarding you board, but if the
board bios has an enable/disable function for 1394, it might have to be set to
'enabled', whether or not you have a 1394 device.

On trying to install XP on a sata drive utilising the built in Promise
controller on a K8V SE Del. board, the drive was not seen until the setting for
1394 was set to 'enabled' (discovered by accident - beginner's luck).

 

[Stuart Palmer]

I believe my asus bios setting for 1394 is already enabled ( Or is this a
setting on the Sata adapter? if so, any ideas how you access/flash the bios
on a sata adapter card? I wonder if this could be my problem.

Cheers
Stu

 

[Stuart Palmer]

Thx Paul,
I'll give this a try later and let you know, After buggering abotu with it
for the last 3 days I'm a little bored and need a break. As soon as I have
anything to report will let you know.

Cheers
Stu

 

[milleron]

There are instructions on the cd (but no manual) in a readme.txt file of
which here it below:

----------------
2. Install Windows NT 4.0, 2000, XP, or Server 2003
* Copy all files and directories from the DriverDisk folder to a
floppy disk.
Make sure the following directories and files are copied into the
floppy disk.
A:\
\2003IA32
VIAsprid.inf
VIAsprid.sys
VIAsprid.cat
\Win2000
VIAsprid.inf
VIAsprid.sys
VIAsprid.cat
\Winnt40
VIAsprid.inf
VIAsprid.sys
\WinXP
VIAsprid.inf
VIAsprid.sys
VIAsprid.cat
Txtsetup.oem
VT6421

* Boot system from OS installing CD-ROM.
* Make sure VT6421 BIOS is executed by the system BIOS when POST.
* Press "F6" when OS installer starts running.
* Insert floppy disk.
* Choose the OS device driver wanted for loading.
* Install OS.
* Install RAID utility after OS is installed.

------------------
Everything is fine except the 'Make sure VT6421 BIOS is executed by the
system BIOS when POST.' This is what I don't think is happening and I'm
hoping it's a setting in my ASUS bios to make this action occur.

TIA for any more suggestions
Stu

If you intend to boot from that drive, then it must be detected during
POST. Some SCSI cards, for example, have intelligence that prevents
them from installing a BIOS during POST if there's no bootable device
connected, but they still show up quite plainly, along with all their
attached devices, during POST.

Paul mentioned running out of memory required for that. However, my
situation is noteworthy in that regard inasmuch as I have a PCI RAID
controller, an AGP card, AND a SCSI card and there's no problem with
not having enough memory (different MoBo, admittedly, but mine's older
and more obsolescent than yours).

I'm beginning to suspect a HARDWARE problem here.
1 -- Have you tried reseating the controller card to make sure that
all pins are connected?
2 -- SATA cables are notoriously more difficult to connect securely
than IDE cables (or any other device connectors for that matter).
Have you cracked the case to make sure that the SATA cable is plugged
in as securely as possible on both ends?
3 -- Have you tried to see if the drive can be detected in another
machine. I know that it was detected once, but that doesn't mean that
it didn't go out immediately afterwards. This happens sometimes.
4 -- You may well have a defective SATA controller card. If none of
the other measures work, I think you're going to have to swap it. If
that's necessary, I'd try not to get another no-name card.

snip

Ron

 

[Stuart Palmer]

Latest news on this one:

1) Put the card and drive in a part built P2 400 p2b motherboard machine,
detected first time and appears listed when starting to install XP. So I am
happy the card and drive are actually o.k.
2) Put the card back in my p4b533 machine and it was detected and the BIOS
for the adapter has run once, but never again.

I don't get why this would be, nothing has changed. I haven't touched the
system bios or anything.

I'm not convinced it's a hardware problem (i.e the devices _do_ work, but
currently not on the system I want it to).

Any more ideas on this new info?

Cheers
Stu

 

[MrGrumpy]

I had a problem trying to install an Adaptec 2410SA in an A78NX deluxe
rev2 - it would be detected, hd's identified but building array would result
in 'freeze' then on reboot card bios wouldn't load.
Adaptec tech. suggested updating Firmware but still no joy. Eventually
Adaptec concluded the card/mobo was incompatible. There were known issues
with certain mobos, but their list was'nt complete.
Card seemed to function fine on another sys.

 

[Paul]

Latest news on this one:

1) Put the card and drive in a part built P2 400 p2b motherboard machine,
detected first time and appears listed when starting to install XP. So I am
happy the card and drive are actually o.k.
2) Put the card back in my p4b533 machine and it was detected and the BIOS
for the adapter has run once, but never again.

I don't get why this would be, nothing has changed. I haven't touched the
system bios or anything.

I'm not convinced it's a hardware problem (i.e the devices _do_ work, but
currently not on the system I want it to).

Any more ideas on this new info?

Cheers
Stu

That is a good sign

I mean the part about getting the BIOS for the adapter to run...

At the BIOS level, the three kinds of persistent information
that I know about, are CMOS RAM (battery backed memory usually
located inside the Southbridge), and DMI/ESCD data (stored near the
end of the BIOS, in the BIOS flash chip).

Clearing the CMOS is pretty straight forward. Always unplug
the computer first, before proceeding. There should be a procedure
in the user manual, and sometimes a critical detail is wrong in
there, so Google for any user feedback on the procedure. Look for
CLRTC in the manual.

In terms of the CMOS, I don't recollect any accounts of adapter
cards having anything to do with the CMOS memory. I would expect,
like everything in life, that certain parts of the CMOS are pretty
standard, and if there is any storage space left over, some BIOS
code (or even OS/application code) might mess with it.

The ESCD function seems to involve the BIOS caching details about
hardware discovered in the last POST. Why these details would be
of any use to the BIOS, is unclear to me, as I think the BIOS
compares the ESCD on every POST anyway.

A similar function is DMI. I think this at one time, had to do
with corporate resource management, and this BIOS function/interface
would return details about the hardware in the machine. I suppose
this would allow the boss to track whether on one day, your
computer had three DIMMs in it, and on the next, only two
DIMMs.

Looking in your manual, Asus Probe seems to have an Information
tab, and the term "DMI Explorer" is used in the manual. You
might try looking at that panel of info, to see if the card
is recognized in any way. Not that it is going to help you
or anything.

When you flash a BIOS from Asus, the DMI and ESCD area can
be erased. (Actually, some flashing tools offer options as
to whether the main BIOS code is flashed, the DMI/ESCD is
erased, and/or the Boot Block code is updated.) On the first
POST, the BIOS is going to store info on there, which means
if you make an immediate backup copy of the BIOS image at
that time, the backup copy will again be different from the
file used to flash.

If you want to play with DMI/ESCD, you could make an archive
copy of your current BIOS image, then compare it in a hex editor,
to see how the "clean" BIOS image from Asus, for that revision
of BIOS, compares to what is currently stored in the BIOS. By
making a backup copy, you aren't taking any risks with flash
upgrades.

Some BIOS used to have a setting, which would request the
ESCD to be redone on the next POST. After a reboot, the POST
operation would clear the request flag and rewrite the ESCD.
That function seems to have disappeared in more modern
motherboards.

Some BIOS place an error message on the screen and use
the word "NVRAM". I'm guessing this is the CMOS battery
backed memory, but have never seen any official confirmation
they are the same thing.

So, that is a review of the persistent store I know about
at the BIOS level. Perhaps you can dig into those areas
and have a look around. I cannot imagine how any of these
would prevent the RAID BIOS from loading, but maybe you'll
figure something out. If this does not involve a persistent
store of info, then how is the BIOS ignoring the card
on a second boot ? That info has to be stored somewhere
within the reach of the BIOS code.

For more fun, you can visit here. Type in "VT6421" and see
what pops up. So far, I haven't been too impressed with
some of the answers, but perhaps you can get a general
impression of whether this is the product for you or
not:

http://forums.viaarena.com/search.aspx

HTH,
Paul

 

[Tim]

<snip>

Detected once only? I would now check the PCI bus clock settings and make
sure it is set correctly. Perhaps try a slightly slow setting just as a
test.

In the past Paul has suggested that if you get no joy out of default
settings, sometimes manually setting a parameter to the correct value can
work. Many motherboards are marginally overclocked - your SATA card may not
be enjoying this.

SATA controllers are reputed for requiring Stock Design speed settings.

- Tim