BOOTABLE PCI-SATA CARD

[jeanenry]

I may be short sighted, and have not seen the threads on PCI-SATA cards.
However I got an unused server 2xcpu board with reduced option. No Sata connections. What are my options for using a pci-sata card to boot up the server. Or am I living in dreamland is everything so BIOS intensive?
thanks for the time to answer and as usual

HAVE A NICE DAY.

 

[GhislainG]

Any controller that supports BIOS Booting (Int13) will meet your requirements. Doesn't your server have PCI-X slots?

PCI
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115030
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115040

PCI-X
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115033

 

[jeanenry]

2x PCI-X 64 bit / 133/100 MHz
* 2x PCI 64 bit / 66/33 MHz
* 2x PCI 32 bit / 33 MHz
These are the slots available. The MB an Arima HDAMA Rev G was taken from a redundant unused large stackable server array. Using AMD Opteron. It works very well. I personally will not be dealing with ordinary PC technology again because it feels nice to know its safe. Unfortunately server boards with dual cpu slots, new are very expensive, so I flipped on this one. Actually I bought a spare.
So the controller on my card must support bios booting, and thats it?

 

[GhislainG]

The requirement for Int 13 support in the BIOS of the disk controller hasn't changed since 1982. Back then all controllers were bootable. If speed is important and/or you'll install several hard disks, get a PCI-X controller. You should also verify that drivers are available for your OS.

 

[jeanenry]

The card is just a 32 bit PCI card not PCI X or PCI 64 bit. I took the card out to see if it fitted an X slot but no it did not. When I restarted the server it did not boot. I had to reset the cmos. Perhaps if i put the card in and reset again the int 13 will work who knows. I have said this before and I will say it again. Gates has got the best brains in the US doing his thing and it is complicated. The card is the Via VIA CHIPSET: VT6412A. maybe this is too cheap. I.ll keep on trying.

 

[GhislainG]

The chipset isn't what makes it bootable; it's the card's BIOS. If it doesn't have a BIOS, then it isn't bootable. I don't know how much you paid for that controller, but the ones that I suggested are inexpensive.