"Starting Windows" - 2 minute timeout, CD not found

I just saw that your MB also has a Silicon Image 4723 Hardware RAID controller which is somehow linked to the ICH7R, as the drives can be combined. What's the state of that?

BTW, although probably not a factor in this situation, I would completely disconnect unused drives, not just the power but also the SATA data connector. Circuits in ambivalent states are never a positive factor .

DJG - Those are good questions.

The Silicon Image hardware RAID controller is disabled by jumper. One ICH7R port leads to the SI chip, which breaks it into two (half speed) ports for RAID. By setting the jumper to disable the chip, the ICH7R port is simply passed through to one of the SATA sockets at full speed and the other socket becomes non-functional.

I don't think this is a common way of configuring the SI chip. If I recall correctly (and it's been more than two years), this jumper setting is documented on the Asus web site and not in the mobo user manual.

The two powered-off drives are attached to the Promise TX4302 controller. They're in mobile racks and are designed to be powered on or off. The Promise controller supports removable drives. The ICH7R does not support hot swap, which is the reason I had to add the TX4302.

It would be easy enough to pull the TX4302 for testing. I don't expect any change in behavior though, as the event 9 is coming from iaStor, which is the Intel Matrix Storage manager. The TX4302 has its own Promise drivers. Testing other settings of the SI disable jumper in this system is less easy. For testing, I could disconnect the drive connected to that jumper. I'll try to do that this weekend.

I figured the TX4302 had no effect on your situation, but did not realize they were on a hot-swap bay, so cool!

That IS a weird arrangement between the Intel chipset & the SI chip. Seeing as it's the one bizarre element in all this, I can't help feel somehow it's the culprit .

I am actually surpised that I'm getting hot-swap functionality in my ICH10R. It works great with my ICY Dock bay, as does the Marvell SAS controller too.

Guy Scharf said:

Woolswell - I had updated the BIOS to 2901 but forgot to change my system specs; I've done that now. 2901 fixed a power management error message but had no effect on the startup delay.

Actually this is a known problem. Go into your BIOS and in the section that governs fans, disable them ALL but leave everything else. Should speed up your boot time considerably.