Member Avatar for gfolkins

Hi,

I installed a SATA PCI card (VIA VT 6421A) with a Maxtor DiamondMax 22 500 GB hard drive, and need a little help figuring out how to make my PC boot from this drive.

I installed the drivers from the RAID card drivers CD to floppy, and when installing my windows XP, I was able to successfully press F6 and load the RAID drivers and install xp to the maxtor hard drive. When I re-started the computer, it realized there was no hard drives installed. (The previous hard drive was physically disconnected and removed).

My computer DOES know where the RAID card is installed, and that it is using IRQ 12. And I have begun the installation of windows xp.

My mainboard is a ECS P4S5A (SiS 645) and uses the xp4 chipset. Again, the SATA PCI card is a VIA VT 6421A.

How can I make my mainboard recognize that there is a hard drive attached to the RAID card using IRQ 12 (I forget which actual PCI slot it is in, but the computer does know it is there)?

Thanks,
Gerald

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by Member #847675

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Short answer for : the machine can install Windows to the Maxtor because the XP installer loaded a driver (you used F6), but the motherboard BIOS must see the controller during POST in order to boot from that disk. That only happens if the add‑in card exposes an option ROM (the small RAID/controller BIOS) that the system BIOS executes — without that the controller will be invisible to the boot sequence even though the OS can talk to it later. (en.wikipedia.org)

What to check first (quick, non‑destructive):

  • Watch POST carefully for a VIA/RAID message or a key hint (the VT6421 family often shows a prompt to enter the controller utility).
  • Disable “quiet boot” / full‑screen logo so any add‑on ROM messages are visible.
  • Check motherboard BIOS boot options for “SCSI”, “PCI add‑on” or similar entries (some BIOSes list add‑in controllers under those names). (manualzz.com)

If nothing shows up, possibilities and next steps:

  • The card’s ROM may be missing or incompatible with your ECS board. Some VT6421A cards can become bootable after adding the VIA VT6421 ROM module (examples such as 6421V431.ROM) into the system BIOS using tools like MMTOOL/CBROM and then reflashing — this is documented by other users, but it is advanced and can brick the motherboard or produce “cannot load add‑on ROM” errors if incompatible. Only attempt this if comfortable with BIOS modding and after saving your original BIOS image. (wimsbios.com)

Recommended, safe sequence to try:

  1. Disable quiet boot; look for the controller prompt.
  2. Try the card in another PCI slot (early slots enumerate first).
  3. Update the motherboard BIOS from ECS.
  4. If still required and you accept the risk, consider integrating the VT6421 ROM into the BIOS (backup original BIOS first).
  5. As the least‑risky alternative, leave a small boot drive on the motherboard and use the VT6421 card HDD as data only (this is what many people do when add‑in cards won’t appear as boot devices).

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Member Avatar for freshfitz

Don't think it's possible you may have to boot from a drive on the motherboard and use the raid array as a data storage only. There also may be certain higher end raid pci cards that do boot.

Member Avatar for Member #847675

Select SCSI as your boot option in the BIOS. If no success try updating the BIOS of your motherboard

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