Thanks for responding. The previous Promise controller card worked fine with this 
m/b which is why I don't understand why this one doesn't directly boot after the 
m/b POSTs. There are several issues that are at play with this controller and this 
pc that need further explanation.

The m/b Bios sees the controller on the pci bus during POST as a "mass storage control" 
and then detects the controller's built-in BIOS which is displayed, then it momentarily 
pauses and prompts to hit F3 to enter the controller's drive setup config window. 
Now, another thing I need to mention is this controller card is a dual function RAID/non-Raid 
adapter. When I bought it I was sent a Flash BIOS upgrade zip file from the manufr 
in order to reconfigure it to work solely as a non-RAID type, which is how I had 
planned to use it. I flashed the card but it didn't make any difference during boot 
up. What i had to do in order for it to boot off of the Maxtor drive was use a special 
boot floppy with the driver files integrated on it which were sent from the mfr along 
with the Bios files. It boots up using this workaround and there are no errors or 
yellow exclamation points in Device Manager for the ScSI controller entry. 

I will try your suggested procedure to mount the hdd on the onboard ide by itself. 
I think I tried that but I don't remember so I'll give it another try. I think there 
may be a conflict with this adapter card because when I try to set the boot sequence 
in cmos setup to A,C or C,A or C only, the machine hangs after POST and doesn't respond 
at all. The only way it finishes post and continues to boot is if I set the sequence 
to CDRom first, such as CDRom, C, A but then I have to use an Ultimate BootCD and 
THEN I have to select the A: drv with the previously mentioned custom boot floppy 
in it. How's that for a bass-ackwards way of doing things!?! I think I am going to 
try to reflash the mobo Bios too and see if it corrects this anomaly. 

I'll keep you posted if I have any luck with it. 
Thanks again.
Mj

• Reply or follow-up to this message

• Search this forum
• Start a new thread on a different subject

• Report abuse of the forum