Storage Controller

[hormel09]

I have a Ultra/66 PCI to IDE adapter developed by Promise technologies. I am trying to install it on my system and would like to have a boot-able HD connected to it. I think it might be a little more difficult than just installing a driver to my OS since it would have to boot an OS separate from the one the HD. Would this require some mod to my bios to be able to boot from a pci slot?

 

[GhislainG]

It will boot from it as long as there's a BIOS (INT13h) on the controller and it's compatible with your motherboard.

 

[hormel09]

So the controller has its own bios? Is there something in the motherboard's bios that would clue me into whether or not is compatible?

 

[GhislainG]

If the controller has a BIOS and you enabled it, you'll see that it scans for devices at POST. Unfortunately I don't know if it has a BIOS or not as you didn't provide any info about it. A link would be very useful.

 

[hormel09]

When a harddrive is attached to the controller card, the only thing the bios wants to do is scan it. Doesn't matter if I go to F2 Setup of or F12 Boot options. It shows that it has some kind of bios. The following link isn't from the manufactures website; however, it is the more informative one I can find.
http://www.slcentral.com/reviews/hardware/controllers/promise/fasttrack66/

 

[hormel09]

Also, I booted up Ubuntu via a USB. It detected the drive connected to the storage controller and, from what I could tell, successfully installed Ubuntu onto it. After reboot the storage controller was yet again 'scanned'. I guess the motherboard bios is trying to detect the bios on the card. After a while it gives up and states, "No boot device available, Press enter to retry"

While it attempts to scan it states,

Copyright (c) 1998-1999 Proimise Technology, In.

Promise Ultra66 Bus Master BIOS V1.11 (Build 0222)

Detecting (/)

eventually it will state:

Ultra/66 BIOS not installed

 

[GhislainG]

As per the specs: "Features LBA and Extended Interrupt13h drive installation in controller onboard BIOS". It will work if your system can detect it. Most 10-12 years old systems should be able to boot from it (10-12 years old or more).

 

[hormel09]

Best answer selected by hormel09.