SCSI Card problems with P4C800-E

[Guest]

Hello,

I have a bit of a problem trying to boot from my SCSI optical drives (1 X
DVDRom and 1 X CDRW drive). I recently purchased a P4C800-E board. On it,
I have installed one 80gig Ultra ATA drive and one 120gig SATA drive. I
have also installed an Adaptec AHA-2940UW SCSI card for the aforementioned
optical drives.

I am trying to install WinXP by booting from the SCSI DVDRom drive. In the
motherboard's bios there does not appear to be an option to boot from SCSI
devices. In the SCSI card's bios, I have left most of the settings at the
default except for the SCSI ID target setting of the DVDRom (ID2). During
the boot process, the SCSI card is recognised as well as the attached
devices, however,at the end of the scroll a message appears that says that
there SCSI bios is not installed!

I've checked terminatiob settings on the last device on the SCSI cable and
also ensured that the termination on the card is enabled. I have also
checked that the card's bios is enabled on the card. I am thinking that the
problem is in the P4C800-E's bios but I am at a loss to find the cause.

Anyone got some suggestions?

Thankyou,

Shane

 

[M.L]

Do you have XP ?

I had problems with a 2940 and XP (working fine on millenium)

Was solved by using a Tekram 395 with the chip flashable (worked only after flashing)

Mike

 

[Guest]

I don't think XP is the problem. This all happens at the boot up before any
OS is installed. The Adaptec's SCSISelect seems to identify the 2940UW
and the two optical drives and also lists there SCSI IDs etc. However, at
the end of the scrolling, something like this appears:

"The boot sections on your bootable CD-ROM are:
0: Default Entry
.........
No SCSI Boot Device Found
BIOS Not installed."

I have also tried another SCSI UW card (IWill with an Advansys chipset).

Any further help on this would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Shane

 

[Guest]

On the 'Boot' menu in the latest bios of the P4C800-E, the 'Boot Device
Priority' menu does not list SCSI as an option.

Shane

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

I don't think XP is the problem. This all happens at the boot up before any
OS is installed. The Adaptec's SCSISelect seems to identify the 2940UW
and the two optical drives and also lists there SCSI IDs etc. However, at
the end of the scrolling, something like this appears:

"The boot sections on your bootable CD-ROM are:
0: Default Entry
........
No SCSI Boot Device Found
BIOS Not installed."

Have you made sure that the Boot SCSI ID is set to the address of the
CD-ROM that you want to boot from and that support for bootable CD-ROMs
is enabled? By default the boot ID is set to 0 and the support for the
CD-ROMs is enabled.
Unless the card finds a bootable device it will not load the BIOS.

 

[Paul]

I don't think XP is the problem. This all happens at the boot up before any
OS is installed. The Adaptec's SCSISelect seems to identify the 2940UW
and the two optical drives and also lists there SCSI IDs etc. However, at
the end of the scrolling, something like this appears:

"The boot sections on your bootable CD-ROM are:
0: Default Entry
........
No SCSI Boot Device Found
BIOS Not installed."

I have also tried another SCSI UW card (IWill with an Advansys chipset).

Any further help on this would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Shane

What happens if all disks are disconnected, except for your SCSI
controller and its optical drives ? Does the SCSI BIOS work then ?

If it does work, add the other devices back one at a time, until
you find which one upsets things.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Guest]

I updated the AHA-2940UW's bios to version 2.20. The result was that the
bios was recognised and installed however, I still could not boot from the
XP CD in the SCSI DVDRom drive. I gave up in the end with the 2940UW and
put in my Tekram DC-390U3W U160 card (which was earmarked for hard drives in
another SCSI system), connected the optical drives to its narrow port and
voila everthing worked as it should.

I'll come back to the Adaptec when I get this system up and running with
fresh copy of XP.

Thanks,
Shane

 

[NSN]

Hello,

I have a bit of a problem trying to boot from my SCSI optical drives (1 X
DVDRom and 1 X CDRW drive). I recently purchased a P4C800-E board. On it,
I have installed one 80gig Ultra ATA drive and one 120gig SATA drive. I
have also installed an Adaptec AHA-2940UW SCSI card for the aforementioned
optical drives.

I am trying to install WinXP by booting from the SCSI DVDRom drive. In the
motherboard's bios there does not appear to be an option to boot from SCSI
devices. In the SCSI card's bios, I have left most of the settings at the
default except for the SCSI ID target setting of the DVDRom (ID2). During
the boot process, the SCSI card is recognised as well as the attached
devices, however,at the end of the scroll a message appears that says that
there SCSI bios is not installed!

I've checked terminatiob settings on the last device on the SCSI cable and
also ensured that the termination on the card is enabled. I have also
checked that the card's bios is enabled on the card. I am thinking that the
problem is in the P4C800-E's bios but I am at a loss to find the cause.

Anyone got some suggestions?

Thankyou,

Shane

Shane:

I have two Adaptec cards in my unit and both work. I can boot SCSI
(which I do) at all times. It should be listed in the BIOS.

If we could talk via the phone I could walk you through the setup on
mine while you do the same on yours.

Neither of us has a valid ID for e-mail so that makes a phone call
rather difficult.

Bottom line .. it is easy and you do have the capability. Are you
checking out all the top 3 catagories in the BIOS under BOOT. You must
have a bootable CD before the boot process will recognize your CD as
bootable. If not, the BIOS might not list the drive under the BOOT
section ..not sure about that though.

Norm

Norm

 

[Guest]

Ok..now that I have the operating system installed on the machine by booting
off an WinXP installation CD using the DVDRom + Tekram SCSI card, I have now
taken out the Tekram and replaced it with the troublesome Adaptec 2940UW (I
won't let it beat me!). With this configuration I again tried to boot off
a WinXP CD without any luck. When I boot the machine the PCs bios details
appear followed by the Adaptec bios details. The two attached DVD/CD Rom
drvies are recognised by their SCSI ID numbers.

After the SCSI DVDRom that I use to boot off a CD with is identified a
message appears-

"A bootable CDROM is detected in your CDRom drive"

followed by another screen message:

"The boot sections on your bootable CDRoms are:
0: DEFAULT ENTRY"

Instead of booting onto the CD in the drive, the process continues on to
boot off the main hard drive into the now installed WinXP.

I still at a loss at what the problem is. As I stated in an earlier post, I
had no problems with the Tekram card. However, the Adaptec won't work as a
boot device.
Incidently, now that the Adaptec is in the machine, the both optical drives
attached to it operate normally within Windows. I just can't boot from
either of them!

Shane

 

[NSN]

Shane:

Since you can boot from the Tekram you certainly have the ASUS BIOS
set correctly. That would mean that you may not have your Adaptec BIOS
set properly.

Have you done a CTRL A while booting and checked the Adaptec BIOS to
make sure that it is set to boot? Also, have you downloaded the
latest driver set from the Adaptec site? I believe that XP has the
necessary drivers but it cannot hurt to try.

Norm

 

[Guest]

Hi Norm,

I have flashed (the latest) version 2.20 bios for the 2940UW. I have also
checked the SCSIselect (Ctrl A) utility to make sure it is set to boot from
cdrom drive and also set the boot device for ID2 being the drive I want to
boot from.

As for drivers, well both drives work ok within Windows XP.

Regards,
Shane

 

[GMAN]

Hi Norm,

I have flashed (the latest) version 2.20 bios for the 2940UW. I have also
checked the SCSIselect (Ctrl A) utility to make sure it is set to boot from
cdrom drive and also set the boot device for ID2 being the drive I want to
boot from.

NO, setting the device you want to boot from applies only to a scsi HD

As for drivers, well both drives work ok within Windows XP.

There is a small little moment when a message appears on the screen asking if
you want to "hit any key to boot from CD rom"

 

[Guest]

Hi,

Ok...I have reset the default settings on the 2940UW by hitting F6. When I
put a bootable WinXP install disk in the drive and reboot, my PC goes from
the PC's bios boot screen to the SCSISelect screen. The DVDROM drive with
the bootable CD in it is identified and following that this message appears:

After the SCSI DVDRom that I use to boot off a CD with is identified a
message appears-

"A bootable CDROM is detected in your CDRom drive"

followed by another screen message:

"The boot sections on your bootable CDRoms are:
0: DEFAULT ENTRY"

The other optical drive is then identified and that is it - there is no "hit
any key...." prompt. What happens next is that the machine reboots and goes
threough the same process again (a cycle). When I take the WinXP CD out of
the drive, the machine then boots into the now installed Window OS.

Thanks for any advice you may offer,

Shane

 

[NSN]

Shane:

1. In the BIOS BOOT section of the P4C800 there are 3 groups at the
top.

I would be interested in what exactly is listed in each of these
groups.

2. If you are not seeing the message "hit any key" try hitting the
space key repeatedly after you see the message " A Bootable CD is
detected" until the boot fails OR you boot successfully.

Norm

 

[NSN]

One other stupid question: In the Adaptec BIOS under Advanced
Configuartion .. you do have BOOT FROM CD "ENABLED"

Norm

Shane:

1. In the BIOS BOOT section of the P4C800 there are 3 groups at the
top.

I would be interested in what exactly is listed in each of these
groups.

2. If you are not seeing the message "hit any key" try hitting the
space key repeatedly after you see the message " A Bootable CD is
detected" until the boot fails OR you boot successfully.

Norm

 

[Guest]

One other stupid question: In the Adaptec BIOS under Advanced

Configuartion .. you do have BOOT FROM CD "ENABLED"

Norm

Yes - Boot from CD is enabled.

Shane

 

[Guest]

1. In the BIOS BOOT section of the P4C800 there are 3 groups at the
top.

Did you mean the Adaptec SCSI card's bios?

I would be interested in what exactly is listed in each of these
groups.

Under the heading:
"SCSI Bus Interface Definition" the following settings are in place:

"Host Adapter SCSI ID.............7
SCSI Parity Checking................Enabled
Host Adapter SCSI Termination...Automatic"

2. If you are not seeing the message "hit any key" try hitting the
space key repeatedly after you see the message " A Bootable CD is
detected" until the boot fails OR you boot successfully.

Norm

I tried that a few rimes but could not boot to the CD. The machine just
booted straight into the hard drive.

Shane

 

[NSN]

Shane:

I meant the ASUS BIOS but never mind .. if it boots OK with the Tekram
card it is set properly. Well, I have run out of ideas. I have a
2940UW and a 29160N in my present unit. I am using the 29160N with my
Plextor CD and Maxtor Atlas III LVD. I use the 2940UW for some of my
external peripherals.

I got the 29160N on E-bay .. I think I paid about $60. It was a Dell
pull and looked new to me. It came with a beautiful Adaptec cable ..
the best one I have seen to date.

Norm