Booting from Raid

[Guest]

Hello there,

I just installed Win2k on a (new) Raid array by itself yesterday and everything was fine, it all installed correctly.

Here's my problem. I had before an HD with a dual boot Win98/Linux and later removed the Linux partition. Result: LILO booter was still there but I could only choose Win98. Now, when I plug in this old HD in any of the IDE channels, my 8K7A+ wants to boot from it because of the Master boot record being present, but LILO just won't load itself correctly. I'm guessing LILO is just unable to recognized what is going on (the actual Linux partition was in fact on yet *another* HD, long story). What I see now is that the MB sees this HD is bootable and wants to boot from it (and it can't) while it can't see that the Raid is also perfectly bootable. So each time my old HD is connected, no matter where, I can't boot. When only the Raid is present then I can boot Win2k normally. In fact, forget the LILO thing and consider this way: HDD-0 is bootable to Win98, Raid is bootable to Win2k. How do I boot to Win2k?

I tried all possible configuration (to my knowledge) of boot levels in the BIOS with no success. If the single HD is not present, it will revert to the Raid. But I want my old HD present, it contains all my data! I hope somebody can tell me what's the magic trick to make the MB try to boot from the RAID 1st *and then* maybe other devices/HDs. (It's not "SCSI", I tried that too.)

Else, anybody remembers the format switch to format only the Master Boot Record? Was it as simple as /mbr? Thing is, it was there in the old format command, I don't know if its still there in the new. (Microsoft just can't leave the good things in...) (Hehehe, the "format" command... If you're younger than 20, disregard that paragraph! Hehe.. )

 

[Guest]

hey.

If it is the mbr screwing things up, something liek fdisk /mbr should do it (i think) or download a disk util from seagate or someone.

i had a similar problem with a raid array once, but it was actually caused by the bios wanting to boot to "ide" over "scsi". The thing was that I was using an ide raid card that reported itself as scsi...

maybe there's a "boot offboard controllers first" kind of option in your bios? it's possibly looking for a local drive, and then not finding one, so it boots raid. When it does find one, it doesn't boot raid.

 

[Guest]

Well, there is a "boot other devices" in the BIOS but it is after booting the "usual" devices and that thing still encompasses the usual devices. If I enable that switch, it still looks in HDD0 before the RAID.

NEway, I did solve my problem though. I put the single drive as a slave on the secondary channel of the *RAID* controller. So now, after looking everywhere, the mobo reverts to the RAID channels, scans them in order and stops at the bootable stripe.

Geez, mucho noise for nothing. The "Boot offboard devices first" is an improvement I'd like to see from Epox (makers of the 8K7A). Btw, fun fact: I did try "fdisk /mbr" on the single drive and then it went to its previous state, before LILO! It started booting Win98 without being stuck in LILO... NEway, got my problem fixed, I shall not complain anymore... Thanks!