Harddrives (Again)

Thanks Julian
Sales people at places like DABS, Simply, etc can be frustrating when it comes to answering such questions.
What make is the card? I might be able to search and find them on th net.

 

it's a dabs value card but i think it's made by innovision multimedia (it's a DM-8301 EIO 2 channel serial ata controller according to the instruction leaflet) have a look here: http://www.ivmm.com/eio/products_sata_pci_host.html

 

Thanks. I messaged Innovision support from their website.

 

Found this somewhere on the world wide web thingy

Any idea if this controller I've ordered is bootable?

Also, where it says "may need to enter setup and change the boot sequence.....", well, would you think less of me if I said I didn't fully understand? Enter what setup?

 

Julian (again ).

Assuming that's the same card as the one I've ordered (it looks the same), it says on that site that there are two configurations supported both requiring 2 drives

Do I need to have two? Or am I missreading something?

 

MO!, by enter setup they are referring to the BIOS setup screens. Usually obatined by holding down 'Del' upon booting the system, check your motherboard manual or watch the first few screens that appear when you boot the system for a phrase like hit 'X' to enter setup. By editing the boot sequence they mean changing what order the BIOS searches for a bootable device. For example in my system I have it set to check the A: drive first then my CD drives and then my C: drive.

 

MO!, the 2 drives requirement is refering to RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) a method of using multiple drives to store information allowing for data recovery. This is just an extra feature of the chipset and you can still use the controller with only one drive.

 

MO
Should be possible to make any drive such as this bootable.
Have you tried searching for setup the help files.
It often give step by step instructions.

 

BL21DE3, I thought I'd just give it a try. At first I was holding the ESC which didn't work ("searching for boot record from floppy..." then from CD ROM.... Then something else quickly flashed up and Windows loaded form then).

Then realising I was meant to hold the Del button, I gave that a try. I'm either missing something obvious here or err......... I'm obviously missing something Tried it a few times, but nothing happened.

And I can't see any instructions either. The first thing on the screen is a small bit of text, only up long enough to read vOOdOO (my graphics) before it goes. Then the next screen is a big Packard Bell logo, and from then windows loads.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks for clearing up 2Drive thing.

BlueMax, I've googled a lot, but not tried finding the products setup and help files. Will try

 

I meant the help files in your operating system. To find out how to make a drive bootable;
Click on 'Start' then 'Help'. In the 'Find' tab type in 'boot'. You will see a list in the window below to choose a topic.
Well, that's how it is with my NT4.0. Should be very similar on yours.

Anyway. good luck with the installation first.

 

2 drives are for raid - if you went for the cheapie 13 quid one then don't worry about it as it isn;t raid compatible.
usually instructions on what key to press are flashed up on the screen at bootup. it may be f2 i think one of my pc's flashes this up but i've not taken much notice.
cheers


julian

 

yes you can, but it does depend on the motherboard. i recently installed a 40 gig drive on a qdi legend 5 mobo / pentium 2. check the motherboard manufacturers website to see if they have a bios upgrade to enable drives larger than 8 gig. you flash the bios, this will enable >8 gig hd support, then the new one will be recognised.

btw the current sata drives (last time i looked into this which was not so long ago), even though they are serial and in theory faster than parallel ide, are underperforming, ide is (was a month or so ago) still quicker.

btw accessing the bios setup is usually with the delete key.

 

Do I press and hold? If so when do I start and finish?

or just tap it? again, if so, when.

Sorry if this is getting tedious now.

 

I should also point out. My PC came with next to no technical type info. Just a load of "Packard Bell love you" crap!

I've a note here which says Packard Bell Pulsar 300/PentiumIII 450MHz/Intel 440ZX AGPset (100MHz) scribbled down. Not sure where it came from. Would the 440ZX bit be something to do with the MObo?

 

440ZX is the intel chipset on the motherboard.
keep tapping the delete key as it boots, if you can hear the floppy disk go "bzzzz bzzzz" as it boots, this is normally about the time you can get into the bios - during the memory check / drive seek / floppy seek test, and before windows starts to load.

had a quick lookabout for you.
http://support.packardbell.com/

i think yours could be the "bora pro" motherboard, this is a 440zx chipset, there are a couple of bios revisions, 2.96 and 3.1
download links
i suggest you check the bios version you have, and flash to 2.96 or 3.1 if "This BIOS version should only be used if the installed video driver is build 1147 or higher. To determine this, go to Device Manager, and double-click your display adapter in the Display Adapters section. Next, go to the Driver tab and click the Driver File Details button.

 

YAY!!!!

F2 it is

Had a quick nose about and found a setting "Quiet Boot" which was enabled to "Display Logo". Disabled that and now on startup, I get a "proper" boot screen with "Press F2 for setup".

Bit daft you have to know how to get in there, to be able to change a setting to for it to display how u get in there!

To keep the likes of me out I guess!

Ok, so I then tried finding the settings to see about making the new HDD seen as bootable. I *think* this was it....

(AMBIOS EASY SETUP UTILITIES Ver 1.17 - (c)1998 American Megatrends inc.)

Advanced then Advanced CMOS Setup.

1st Boot Device Floppy
2nd Boot Device CDROM
3rd Boot Device IDE0

I take it I leave the 1st and 2nd as they are, then change the 3rd?

Can't see PCI (which is what I was expecting - as that's where the controller will be going?). The options available were....

Disabled
IDE0
IDE1
IDE2
IDE3
Floppy
LS-120
ATAPI ZIP
CDROM
SCSI
NETOWRK

 

I think the BIOS version is AMBIOS EASY SETUP UTILITIES Ver1.17

And for the Display Adaptor (3DFX vOOdOO3) It says the File Version is 5.00.3545.0028

So, what do I do? and when?

Cheers

 

the bora pro mobo has amibios installed.
see link for the screens, that shows amibios v 1.17

5.00.3545.0028 is the latest XP version of the voodoo drivers. not sure where this 1147 comes in.

 

it'll probably give the options of sata1 & sata 2 when the card is installed.
cheers


julian

 

So my video drvers ok, does that mean I should be updating the BIOS? When?

Them screen shots look the same as what I have.