A7N8X and raid card no boot?

[Dreadnaught]

i just bought-
2600+ retail
Asus A7N8X Delux retail
2X 3500cl2 Crucial DDR retail
2X 80gig WD 8meg cache
Adaptec RAID 1200a controller

I just put that all together, and the controller pops up right after mobo bios, and was able to do RAID 0. installed XP Pro with the propper raid controller drivers installed, finished, installed the mobo drivers propperly, took the XP cd out, and it wont boot up.
i have tried all the boot sequences, scsii, no devices but addon bootable. but nothing works. the only way i can get her to boot is if i have cdrom listed as 1st boot. when it then boots it asks if i want to boot from cdrom, and i dont touch anything, it then boots up like nothings wrong.

adaptec says to either list scsii as 1st boot, or dont choose anything, but that didnt work. i know in the past that bios updates have fixed this, but none are avail for this mobo aparently.
i disabled serial ata. when i got the motherboard i thought it supported ata raid for some reason, didnt know it was serial ata raid that it did. i set the bus to 166, and the memory timing to agressive which looks like thats all set up right. im assuming i have it doing dual ddr, i have the memory sticks in slot 1 and 3. the raid controller cant get a flash update. highpoint was my first choice, but id already gotten all the rest of my stuff before i realized i needed a controller so i got the best i could fine localy so i could set it up asap, tired of waiting! heh

ive searched everywhere i can for an answer so thought id ask you gurus out there. THANKS!!!

 

[jlanka]

is there possibly a config setting in the BIOS of the SCSI adapter you have to change?

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[Dreadnaught]

no, none that i found.

one thing that i wanted to add is the slot i put the ata raid card into.
The motherboard has 5 PCI slots, i put it into the 2nd slot.
AGP
1PCI=EMPTY, too close to vid card, seen things fried
2PCI=ADAPTEC RAID CONTROLLER
3PCI=EMPTY
4PCI=EMPTY
5PCI=EMPTY

in the mobo manual, i read that it has 3 32bit/33MHZ PCI slots. but it has 5 pci slots, i cant seem to find which slots are the full slots. Should i be putting the card into the Bottom most slot? in doing so, do you think ill have to rebuild the array? i dont think so just wondering.

anyway, thats the only other idea i have to fix that i havent tried. id love to know which slots are the ones to really use. but since i get the controller card popping up durring bootup, doesnt that mean its ok? drivers for it are loaded fine in XP when i do my cd bypass.

 

[snotling]

change your boot order in the Motherboard's BIOS, so that the first boot DEVICE is SCSI (or sometimes they call it otherwise) it booted fine with the CD because it is probably in the first position in your boot sequence.

but without CD you may have a NO system found problem.

WOOOAH, gives you a head-ache juste trying to figure out what I wrote... Ignore the previous!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Snotling on 12/04/02 03:07 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Dreadnaught]

no, the only time that it will boot is if i have xp cd in. it asks if i want to boot to cdrom, i dont say yes, it times out, then goes to my raid.

if i dont have cd rom listed in boot order it wont ever do anything after the verifying dmi...
i have tried scsii boot first, i have tried no items in boot order so it will check for other devices. neither work. I called WD, they tried helping but said they dont support raid. adaptec ive searched on site, only help stuff listed hasnt worked.

wheres crashman when you need him!? hehe

 

[Crashman]

Could be an IRQ sharing problem for the slot itself, you might want to try another slot, you shouldn't need to rebuild the array.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[Dreadnaught]

I did more reading, and my memory served me right, the 2nd pci slot for a mobo with AGP is the best slot for a RAID controller. I did however move it to another slot on the mobo, the bottom one, because id seen a picture on adaptec of them putting a card in that slot. still wouldnt boot from it on its own however.

my pc doesnt actualy boot from the cdrom, but if it sees a bootable cd it asks me if i want to, but if i dont boot from the cdrom it just moves on to the raid array.

to further explain everything ive done, I have those nice 2 foot shielded grounded rounded dual connector IDE cables running to the hard drives, 1 cable per drive. because ive read that 2 feet is too long, i have the drives connected to the slave of each cable, and the jumper set to Master on both drives.
When the adaptec 1200a raid bios kicks in, it takes a LONG time scanning for devices, and then spits out that they are both listed as primary and secondary master. it then moves onto the verifying dmi, then to the bootup, where it will stop unless i have that xp cd in.

also another issue which i didnt even get to notice, is that when im in xp( all drivers loaded and updated and packs installed)i cannot use 3D. have the most current vid drivers, and the card came from another pc, i know it works, its a gf3.

anyway, yeah im wondering if its IRQ conficts. this bios is different for me. in the past i could just choose yes or no for PLUG AND PLAY OS. since XP you tell it no so that it manages everything. i dont mind formatting and restarting. i scored 1434 at pcpstrip last night for fun, with my aging vid card. anyway, hope someone can go OHHH i know the answer, with this new info. thanks much!

 

[Dreadnaught]

emailed asus, waiting on response. going to see if its memory stick or something.

 

[Dreadnaught]

ok, ive tried different slots on pci for raid, ive tried slot 1,3 and ive tried 2,3 for ram
ive disabled ESCD, ive retried all the various boot choices again. still only cdrom boot into hard drives only way on.
the "Could not find any compatible Direct3D devices." message for 3d screensavers, and no 3d support for games is driving me insane as well. everything reads as fine in all hardware.

the 3d card part i seem to remember having that issue in another pc. could of swarn it was memory.

please people throw out suggestions, but please try not to say for me to do things ive said ive done already.
Crashman, if ya wanna take a peak at my computer or if someone wants SS of settings lemme know!!!

 

[Dreadnaught]

ok, the strange beyond strange issue haunts me again... the reason for no 3d was because my 19 inch monitors are gateway ev900 and ev910, which for some bizzare reason screw the 3d to hell and back... my workaround before was to make my own inf file to use. ill have to try it again.. cuz ive lost my original workaround, boo. still no idea for the boot process but at leasti have a workaround for now. id love help on it still! damn gateway

 

[efmoto]

Dreadnaught, did you find a way to boot to your raid?
I have a similar prob w/ XP and my MSI k7t266 pro2-ru mobo.

 

[t8ar]

There appears to be a problem with putting a
Raid controller on the pci bus. I tried a
Promise (on pci bus) raid controller card
and ran into problems too. The story I got
from ASUS is there is a conflict with the on
board SATA raid controller (even if off).
Not sure they are right, but I am going to
try SIIG's "Serial ATA-to-Ultra ATA Adapter"
(one on each HD) & use the SATA
raid controller on the MB. Just ordered the adapters
so it will be a few days.

 

[paulj]

Hope that works for you. Let us know how it goes. I am thinking of doing the same thing.

<font color=red>The solution may be obvious, but I can't see it for the smoke coming off my processor.</font color=red>

 

[Dreadnaught]

at least you got them to tell you that much, when i had called they wouldnt say that much. cuz i even asked and they said no if its disabled then it shouldnt matter. im past my return date for my raid controller so if they dont fix ill be one hot customer!

<A HREF="http://www.trsclan.com" target="_new"> Clan TRS is Back </A>

 

[Dreadnaught]

ok, i finaly got around to turning pc off. i installed a yamaha 44x burner. anyway i went ahead and put my hard drives to cable select instead of master, then went into bios and set scsi as boot device, and now she boots just fine. so it was infact the western digital drives that were doing me in. nothing wrong with the mobo in this regard, im truly in love with pc.

<A HREF="http://www.trsclan.com" target="_new"> Clan TRS is Back </A>