Asus a7n8x-e deluxe mainboard and adaptec 1210 sata raid controller boot problem

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  • on 01.07.09
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  • I have an a7n8x-e deluxe mainboard which uses a Silicon Image 3112 controller and also has an adaptec 1210 sata controller installed. My main operating system which is Windows XP is installed on a a raid 0 mirror set of two SATA drives on the adaptec controller. This will boot niceley into windows XP. However if I connect a new drive to the onboard SATA 3112 controller then the system will not boot as it says there is no operating system installed. I have tried every BIOS option available to get this configuration to work, to no avail. However if I boot up the system and hot swap the single drive onto the mainboard this is seen and accessable by the OS. I have also tried upgrading the BIOS to version 1013 with no luck. The strange thing is that the same configuration worked with my old A7n8x deluxe version 1.02 mainboard which was changed because it was unstable with my new AMD Athlon 3.2 GHZ processor and memory speeds. I am after an answer which will not envolve me rebuilding my OS again. Therefore I do not wish to move my raid set to the Onboard Controller as it will mean a rebuild as the set from the Adaptec controller is not compatible with the 3112 controller because it is not recognised when I move this over. I have searched and search the net and can not find a solution to this. Regards Zigger-ga


  • lazerfx-ga, You are correct in what you say when another IDE device is concerned. However the BIOS does seem to make the Mainboard 3112 device over-ride. Isn't it strange that this was not a problem on the older a7n8x rev 1.02 board (the only thing that changed). I suspect it is a BIOS issue that ASUS have overlooked (BTW - Nothing on the ASUS support site regarding this). I wonder if ASUS would answer this or maybe there is a hacked BIOS to get around the problem. Sureley ASUS could give boot preference to another SATA device as they did in their earlier mainboard? Thanks again Zigger-ga Regards Zigger P.S Hate to sound ungrateful but the point of this question was that I don't want to pay for an answer unless it will not envolve me rebuilding my OS again at my own cost/time.


  • lazerfx-ga, When I say make the mainboard 3112 over-ride. I was wrong. I want the 1210 Adaptec controller to see the primary XP OS and boot from this and not be overriden by the 3112 SATA built in controller. E.g. Boot from the Adaptec 1210 Mirrorset and ignore the 3112 controlers single SATA drive until windows XP boots. As a reminder, all boots well with the 2 x mirror drives connected to the Adaptec 1210 controller as long as no 3112 devices are connected. I can boot and after booting connect a 3112 connected drive after the OS loads, as this will be seen as a hot swap in. However if the 2 x Adaptec 1210 mirrors and the 3112 drive are connected at boot time the Motherboard looks for the 3112 connected drive and says no Operating System. Damn I want it to look at the Adaptec 1210 connected mirror set XP system drives, boot up and then say hello I can see the 3112 connected SATA drive as an additional drive and see it as say drive d: Asus what have you changed??? I only changed mainboard to get the 3.2 Ghz processor working with 400Mhz FSB memory as you said the A8N8X 1.02 board would do the 3.2 GHz Athlon originally and now it wont. Then it failed through stability problems, so I changed to a A7n8x-e deluxe board because of this. And now I have boot problems. BTW Does anyone on here have any good say with ASUS. Thanks again lazerfx-ga. Help Appreciated...... Regards Zigger


  • Zigger, I have the A7N8X-E Deluxe, and it is a brilliant system, however one of its known deficiencies, unfortunately, is in the area of booting devices. I have a system that uses the onboard IDE controller with an old hard disk, and the onboard SI3112 as the main boot device. The only way I could get this to work was to set (In the BIOS) the SCSI as boot device, disable all other options (IDE boot, CDROM boot, etc), and then disable 'Boot other devices'. However, I suspect this wouldn't work in your case as you have two devices (The SI3112, and the A1210) that would appear to the BIOS as 'SCSI'... In this case, the only solution I can give is to try booting from each of the available devices, having only the one device on in the boot options in the BIOS, and see if that gives a boot device that reflects the 'external' SATA/SCSI, and not the 'internal' SATA/SCSI. Search Methodology - Personal Experience with this motherboard. I had to go through this exact process to get the SATA as main boot device, and IDE as secondary hard disk - it's not an easy motherboard to set up; but it's got some very nice features, and an excellent price.


  • lazerfx-ga, When I say make the mainboard 3112 over-ride. I was wrong. I want the 1210 Adaptec controller to see the primary XP OS and boot from this and not be overriden by the 3112 SATA built in controller. E.g. Boot from the Adaptec 1210 Mirrorset and ignore the 3112 controlers single SATA drive until windows XP boots. As a reminder, all boots well with the 2 x mirror drives connected to the Adaptec 1210 controller as long as no 3112 devices are connected. I can boot and connect a 3112 connected drive after a boot as this will be seen as a hot swap in. However if the 2 x Adaptec 1210 mirrors and the 3112 drive are connected at boot time the Motherboard looks for the 3112 connected drive and says no Operating System. Many Thanks, Zigger







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