I have an ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe mobo with two SATAII drives in the case. I also have a 500 GB Seagate in an AZIO external case that connects via the eSATA port. I want to use the external drive for backups and it is working OK. But ideally I would like to be able to set up to boot from it in case the orignal C: drive internally fails.
The eSATA port is on a Silicon Image controller. I am NOT setting up RAID anywhere. I have installed ASUS's Silicon Image SATA driver in Windows XP so it all works. But if I were trying to boot without the C: drive containing Windows, I doubt it will work. To me the fact that you must install a Windows driver to use the eSATA port means the basic Silicon Image controller may not be useable at boot time.
Now, I see on the ASUS CD an option to create a Silicon Image SATA boot disk. If I do that is there a way to have that load a driver during BIOS boot so that I can actually get to the eSATA drive and boot from it? Since this option is listed separately from those to create a RAID boot disk, I assume the SATA boot disk is for my situation without using RAID.
I suppose the other option is to use the adapter plate provided by AZIO to plug the eSATA connector into one of the regular mobo's SATAII ports. Those ones already are set to PATA emulation and can be used to boot. But I am not sure that will support eSATA completely.
The eSATA port is on a Silicon Image controller. I am NOT setting up RAID anywhere. I have installed ASUS's Silicon Image SATA driver in Windows XP so it all works. But if I were trying to boot without the C: drive containing Windows, I doubt it will work. To me the fact that you must install a Windows driver to use the eSATA port means the basic Silicon Image controller may not be useable at boot time.
Now, I see on the ASUS CD an option to create a Silicon Image SATA boot disk. If I do that is there a way to have that load a driver during BIOS boot so that I can actually get to the eSATA drive and boot from it? Since this option is listed separately from those to create a RAID boot disk, I assume the SATA boot disk is for my situation without using RAID.
I suppose the other option is to use the adapter plate provided by AZIO to plug the eSATA connector into one of the regular mobo's SATAII ports. Those ones already are set to PATA emulation and can be used to boot. But I am not sure that will support eSATA completely.