What bios settings to change to boot from a pci card

[jan-52]

Hello,
I have tried to install a Seagate Baraccuda 7200 drive with a new PCI card Pluscom VT6421A on my Matsonic MS8147C+v.10 M/B. I have cloned my hard disc and can see the disc in the control panel and in explorer, but I cannot get the computer to boot from my new hard disc. I do not know what settings to change in my bios and it does not pick up automatically. Can anybody help?
I am running XP

 

[r_manic]

You have to look for a menu in your BIOS allowing you to change "boot order" or "boot priority". Check your mobo's manual to help you find it; the info might be there.

 

[jan-52]

You have to look for a menu in your BIOS allowing you to change "boot order" or "boot priority". Check your mobo's manual to help you find it; the info might be there.

Hi
In my advance BIOS the choices I have for first boot device are as follows:
Floppy
LS120
HDD-0
SCSI
CDROM
HDD-1
HDD-2
HDD-3
ZIP100
USB-FDD
USB-ZIP
USB-CDROM
LAN
Disabled

I have tried setting it to SCSI and I have also tried putting a jumper on the new hard disc as I found something that said that the data might be too fast.

Do you have any suggestions?

 

[aford10]

Try slipstreaming the cards driver into the windows disc or load them when you're prompted for the 3rd party controllers.

 

[jan-52]

Try slipstreaming the cards driver into the windows disc or load them when you're prompted for the 3rd party controllers.

Sorry, I don't know what you mean. I don't have a windows disc, it came loaded. I have loaded the drivers for the PCI card from the disc that came with the card. Is there anything else I can do?

Thanks so much for your help🙂

 

[aford10]

So if you have a primary drive, why are you trying to boot off another drive?

 

[jan-52]

So if you have a primary drive, why are you trying to boot off another drive?

My computer keeps clicking and so I looked on the internet to see if I could find out why and alot of sites said it could be that my hard disc was on the way out. I have a programme on my hard disc that I cannot afford to lose and I do not have the installation disc for it so I thought the best way to solve the problem was to get a new hard disc and clone it. Of course things have moved on and so I checked if the Seagate disc would work, and again it seemed that if I put a PCI card in, it would solve my problems.
How wrong can you be?

 

[aford10]

Did you install the SATA card drivers before you cloned the drive? I've had issues booting off drives connected to PCI cards in the past. If I remember correctly, it requires the PCI driver to be installed before you can boot off it. It's similar to a RAID array in that aspect.

 

[jan-52]

Did you install the SATA card drivers before you cloned the drive? I've had issues booting off drives connected to PCI cards in the past. If I remember correctly, it requires the PCI driver to be installed before you can boot off it. It's similar to a RAID array in that aspect.

I did install the PCI card first, then I ran the cd that came with it to install the drivers, then I installed the Seagate hard drive and cloned it with the Seagate cloning package. I then removed the power to the old drive and tried to boot up which did not work. I went into the bios and change the setting in the 'boot from' option to SCSI and tried again. It did not work so I put the power back on the old drive and booted back into the computer. I checked in the control panel and could see the disc there, I looked in explore and could see an 'F' drive with all the files on although I could not see another drive (as i put a partition on the new disc) so I am stumpted!!!
Sorry, I do not know much about computers - just trying to get by!!!

 

[aford10]

The drivers are normally loaded at the beginning of the windows install. Since you've installed them after windows, and then cloned the drive, im not sure how that will effect being able to boot off it. Maybe someone with more experience on this than me can answer that.

My first thought, is that the problem lies with your BIOS. The secondary drive is recognized and functioning off the SATA card when you boot off your main drive. However, the BIOS isn't seeing, or giving the option of, your PCI device as a bootable device. You may want to look for a new BIOS version.

 

[jan-52]

The drivers are normally loaded at the beginning of the windows install. Since you've installed them after windows, and then cloned the drive, im not sure how that will effect being able to boot off it. Maybe someone with more experience on this than me can answer that.

My first thought, is that the problem lies with your BIOS. The secondary drive is recognized and functioning off the SATA card when you boot off your main drive. However, the BIOS isn't seeing, or giving the option of, your PCI device as a bootable device. You may want to look for a new BIOS version.

Do I just look for an update for my Matsonic bios? Have never done that as my view is if it aint broke, don't fix it!! I did think of doing that, but not sure if it would do more harm than good. Will have a go at that tomorrow - I'll let you know if it works - thanks for your help🙂

 

[aford10]

You'll want to search the manufacturer's site for your motherboard model. If there is an update, it should be there. Though, that is an old motherboard.

 

[jan-52]

You'll want to search the manufacturer's site for your motherboard model. If there is an update, it should be there. Though, that is an old motherboard.

Thanks - will do🙂

 

[jan-52]

Nightmare!!!!!
Cannot find a Matsonic website and cannot find a bios upgrade for my board.
Only option is to buy a new M/B.
Anything I have to watch out for?

Thanks for your time yesterday - you were very helpful🙂

 

[amnotanoobie]

Nightmare!!!!!
Cannot find a Matsonic website and cannot find a bios upgrade for my board.
Only option is to buy a new M/B.
Anything I have to watch out for?

Thanks for your time yesterday - you were very helpful🙂

You may try this:
1. Boot up with the old hard drive and attach the new hard drive also.
2. Go to Device Manager and find your new drive, right-click it and select Uninstall.
3. If it asks for a restart, click Yes, or manually restart the computer.
4. While the computer is restarting boot onto the Seagate cloning software (which I would assume runs without the need for Windows XP).
5. Clone the drive
6. Remove the old drive (physically)
7. Boot with new hard drive.


Here's what I think happened also to me:
You booted the computer to Windows XP (with the old drive), with the new hard drive attached. XP detects the drive and assigns it a drive letter. You clone the drive, and when you boot off on the new drive, when XP is loading it looks for the old drive as it knows it is the C: drive. It is shocked that it sees the new drive which has a different letter (maybe D:, E:, or something else), it tries to look for files on C: which physically isn't there.

By uninstalling the new drive on XP, your OS would probably not assume a drive letter for your new hard drive and just assign it as the new C: drive.

 

[aford10]

Nightmare!!!!!
Cannot find a Matsonic website and cannot find a bios upgrade for my board.
Only option is to buy a new M/B.
Anything I have to watch out for?

Thanks for your time yesterday - you were very helpful🙂

Here's a download for BIOS v1.01. I must caution, I have never used this site. I don't like downloading from 3rd party sites. However, your motherboard is so old, that support is not very good. If you're thinking of upgrading the motherboard, this is worth a shot first.
http://drivers.softpedia.com/progDownload/MATSONIC-MS8147C-Bios-101-Download-3618.html

 

[daship]

Use laplink PC mover if you need to transfer your program to a new PC.