CDROM Boot on A7V

[aviwil]

I have an ASUS A7V with ATA/100 Promise onboard , an IBM 30GB disk , LG CDROM ,and Yamaha CD Writer , Athlon 1 Ghz . On boot I see Primary and Secondary Master/Slave as not detected . I can't boot from the CDROM ( Win 98 Starup Boot diskette can't see the CDROM's either ) and the BIOS shows CDROM as none , so I assume that both CD"s are on the Promise controller . I am using System Commander and want to install a second version of Win '98 SE alongside the existing one . I assume requesting the dealer to put both CD's on the IDE will solve this problem . Is that correct ? Is there any preference for Primary/Secondary Master/Slave here ( one on Primary , one on Secondary ) ? Anything else important to request ? When installing the second Win '98 to it's own Partition will I be able to access the HD if there is not yet any Windows Promise Controller software ? Thanks .

 

[khha4113]

I have an ASUS A7V with ATA/100 Promise onboard , an IBM 30GB disk , LG CDROM ,and Yamaha CD Writer , Athlon 1 Ghz . On boot I see Primary and Secondary Master/Slave as not detected .

Are your Primary and Secondary Master/Slave channels set to <b>Auto</b>?

Is there any preference for Primary/Secondary Master/Slave here ( one on Primary , one on Secondary ) ?

My opinion, put IBM HD on Primary Master,Yamaha CDRW on Secondary Master and CDROM on Sec. Slave.

When installing the second Win '98 to it's own Partition will I be able to access the HD if there is not yet any Windows Promise Controller software ?

Yes, I'd done mine like that, but you need to set <b>Onboard ATA device first</b> to <b>YES</b>.

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[RCPilot]

Been there, Done that!!! I'm running the very same rig, almost. Got the first I gig
T-bird around & had the same trouble as you did, only I had it happen to me early this year.

ASUS A7V
1 gig T-Bird
40 gig WD HDD.
12x10x32 Burner
50x CD Rom

Other things as well, but that's enough for this response. Nothing is wrong, you have
to think Differently. It Took me 3 weeks for it to sink in my head, but this is how it
is. On boot you should see the CD ROM as the primary master. In my case I see
the CD ROM as the Primary Master & the CD Burner as the Primary Slave. You
do not want to see the HDD at all there. 1 good reason! The Promise Controller is
Plug & Play & it is not turned on during the boot cycle. Now after it sees the CD
ROM as the master, it will go to another screen & it will say Detecting with a
swirlely thing going, that's the Promise Controller being turned on & searching for
ATA 100 compatible components. It will pick up your HDD there & should,
ONLY there! You'll see it grab the HDD & say it's detected as UDMA 5, which is
ATA 100. Then & only then will you have ATA 100 transfers to the HDD.
Otherwise, your running the HDD dead without any ATA support. The ROM will
read & load anything that's in it, when it's set up that way. A Simple thing, but was a
learning curve for me. All the other computers I'd built before this one, they always
posted with the HDD as the master, but then again, I never had as fast of
components before either. Go Figure, I'm still learning about these things.

Hope it helped & now you screaming. Well as fast as you can with a A7V. Me
personally, I'm building again when AMD puts out a 2 gig chip. DDR & 266 FSB
are in my future.

RC

God Bless America