Cannot boot from devices on RC-209-EX (SiL3114) PCI-SATA Adapter

[Muad Dib]

When I installed a TF III GTX 570 video card I lost my PCIE-X1 slot and 1 SATA port on the Inspiron 530 Foxconn G33-M03 MOBO I am still running. Now aside from the fact that I need to upgrade the MOBO...

I added a Rosewill RC-209-EX PCI-SATA adapter (SiL3114) to gain back 4 SATA ports.

The card is working fine. It is slow compared to the MOBO SATA ports but I expected that. I have a Seagate 500GB HDD and an Optiarc DVD R/W drive attached to it.

BUT..... I can not boot from either device. They do not appear in the boot options....

Based on my reading I got the "NON-RAID" (IDE/ATA emulation) BIOS from Silicon Image and flashed the card's BIOS since I will not be using it for RAID. It is just for more SATA ports.

Should I be able to "see" the PCI-SATA card and its attached devices in the 530's BIOS Setup Screen? Is it a limitation of my Dell neutered BIOS?

The RC-209-EX documentation specifically states it "supports" CD/DVD drives.

There is plenty written about booting from a RAID array configured to the RC-209-EX but very little about booting from single device.

Any input would be appreciated. I have already tried several things but with no luck.

 

[Muad Dib]

Well to answer my own question.

The RC-209-EX PCI-SATA controller requires a MOBO with a BIOS that supports booting from a SCSI Contoller. It would seem that the Dell Inspiron 530 FoxConn G33-M03 MPBO does not.

Now that that is settled I can just configure it for the additional storage which is what I really need anyway.

As a side note, Rosewill technical support said that not all OD devices will work with it even though the documenation states that the RC-209-EX "now supports DVD/CD drives". I can state that my Optiarc DVD/RW drive seems to work fine with it though I will move it back to a MOBO SATA port in case I do need to boot from it.

 

[pscowboy]

That's a shame your mobo couldn't help you with the boot order.

I still service a couple of PII boards that allow SCSI to be set first in the boot section. And a few dozen much newer ones I'm intimate with still do as well.

There are a lot of RAID cards (IDE & sata) in use that are not set up for RAID, but run a single hard drive.

Curious that Dell would drop that aspect. Have you checked the Dell site for an older BIOS that may include what you need?

 

[Muad Dib]

The BIOS I am running with is one of from TheLostBrain.com website (v1.0.18). It is no longer available but it was done by a guy who modded Dell BIOS for Vostro, Imspiron and others to enable support for various RAID configurations. The Dell Inspiron BIOS for instance only supported mirroring. The modded LostBrain BIOS allows striping, etc.

Given the situation I am thinking of re-flashing back to the stock Dell BIOS but that is no guarantte that it will support booting from SCSI.

I am not keen on flashing back to an older Inspiron BIOS unless I can find a version that specifically syayes that it does support PCI based SCSI devices.