Third SATA drive keeps PC from booting

[iron squid]

I bought a new 500g WD SATA drive, and SATA PCI card. I've installed the card fine. Currently I have two other SATA drives, including a Raptor that's my boot drive. Those two are plugged into a second SATA PCI card.

When I plug the new HD into the card and reboot, everything seems to go fine. During the boot screen, the SATA cards show they detect the HDs. Unfortunately not long after my PC gets to the "Boot from CD:" prompt, and then hangs. Usually it immediately goes to the Windows login screen, but not when I've got my third SATA drive plugged in.

I've tried swapping the drives around and plugging them into different cards and in different orders, but no love. It seems that whenever I have a third SATA drive plugged in, my PC wants to hang right before it boots. It seems that my PC can't figure out which SATA drive is the boot drive.

I took out the SATA card that was in there, and replaced it with another one. I still get the same error message. Just to make sure it wasn't a power-supply or IRQ issue, I unplugged all the IDE connections, but no luck.

I haven't heard of any issues like this with my mobo: Epox 8RGA+.

Anyone know how I could resolve this?

[James]

So to understand everything correctly:

You are running 3 SATA drives off of 2 add-in PCI SATA controller cards. I'm assuming each card only has 2-ports.

2. When you run both SATA controllers and all 3 drives the computer won't boot. But if you run both controllers with only two drives, it will.

From what you've described, it sounds exactly like the boot order is being changed after you add the 3rd drive, as you have said.

After you install all 3 drives, does the boot order change in the BIOS? If not, do you have the option to press ESC or some other button during boot to bring up a boot menu? If so, see what your options are under there.

Other than that, I might suggest looking into a 4-port SATA controller. Sorry I don't have more ideas.

[proxops-pete]

It seems like possible SATA controller conflict.
I'd make sure that the controller w/ boot device connected has higher priority in boot sequence as well as being the first one in PCI slots. Are they based on same chipset?

[iron squid]

So to understand everything correctly:

You are running 3 SATA drives off of 2 add-in PCI SATA controller cards. I'm assuming each card only has 2-ports.

2. When you run both SATA controllers and all 3 drives the computer won't boot. But if you run both controllers with only two drives, it will.

From what you've described, it sounds exactly like the boot order is being changed after you add the 3rd drive, as you have said.

After you install all 3 drives, does the boot order change in the BIOS? If not, do you have the option to press ESC or some other button during boot to bring up a boot menu? If so, see what your options are under there.

Other than that, I might suggest looking into a 4-port SATA controller. Sorry I don't have more ideas.

Hello James,

Yes your assumption is correct: three drives off two SATA PCI cards. When I run only two drives, regardless of which drives are plugged in or which card they're attached to, my computer will boot fine. When the third drive is plugged in, it refuses to boot.

I haven't changed any settings in the BIOS when I add in the third drive. Since my mobo doesn't have any SATA ports on it, I don't believe there is anything in the BIOS to tell it to change the SATA boot order. Only the order of the IDE drives.

[James]

Well, if the BIOS detects an add-in hdd controller, it will add it to the list of boot options, usually. If I remember right, I had to change the boot order when I added in my SCSI controller on my old NF2 based system. It defaulted to the onboard controllers first, and I had to change it.

I would definitely say look into the BIOS and see if there is a boot option like "Bootable add-in card" or "external controller", etc. Then see if it lists the different choices for the cards you have plugged in.

[iron squid]

Well, if the BIOS detects an add-in hdd controller, it will add it to the list of boot options, usually. If I remember right, I had to change the boot order when I added in my SCSI controller on my old NF2 based system. It defaulted to the onboard controllers first, and I had to change it.

I would definitely say look into the BIOS and see if there is a boot option like "Bootable add-in card" or "external controller", etc. Then see if it lists the different choices for the cards you have plugged in.

Well I looked at my BIOS but I didn't see anything. I took some pictures in the event I was misinterpreting something. These are the only screens that have anything to do with a HD. I'll link them as they're all a bit large:

http://img79.imageshack.us/my.php?im...aerror11ly.jpg
http://img79.imageshack.us/my.php?im...aerror29tj.jpg
http://img301.imageshack.us/my.php?i...aerror34ei.jpg
http://img301.imageshack.us/my.php?i...aerror49ab.jpg
http://img129.imageshack.us/my.php?i...aerror57ir.jpg

Perhaps you can see something in there that will apply to this situation. I do appreciate your assistance, btw.

[Colossus]

Hmmm, It would normally be under ADVANCED BIOS FEATURES. Is that a gigabyte board by any chance?

What kind of board is it?

[iron squid]

Hmmm, It would normally be under ADVANCED BIOS FEATURES. Is that a gigabyte board by any chance?

What kind of board is it?

Epox 8RGA+

[Colossus]

Are the cards the same exact cards?

What kind of cards are they? I assume one has a BOOT ROM to be able to boot from. I am downloading the manual now, but my connection to EPoX ATM sucks.. Will be done soon then I can take a peek at the manual.

[iron squid]

Alright. On a whim I found an inexpensive 4-port SATA card from Newegg. I installed it and loaded up the drivers for it. Yet when I try to boot from it by hooking up my Raptor to it, I get an error message that says "No NTLRD Found!"

Returning the Raptor to the other SATA card, and my PC boots fine. So I tried leaving the Raptor plugged into the workin SATA card, and hooking up another HD to the new card. At this point when I go into Windows, it *immediately* freezes. In fact it hangs so fast the Windows loading screen is still faded out somewhat.

Yeesh.

I think if I can get Windows to recognize my Raptor is hooked up to my new SATA card, I should be good. But how do I get it to do this?