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#1 2010-08-07 21:42:10

xc1024
Member
Registered: 2009-11-10
Posts: 51

VT6421A based SATA adapter non-bootable

Hello to all fellow Archers. I have an ancient; 1998ish mobo (Asus P3V133), which obviously has no SATA ports. I bought a £6 SATA adapter off eBay (Pluscom 4 port SATA PCI based on VT6421A chip, product code S4P-VT6421A) to connect up my brand new 1.5 TB Samsung EcoGreen. Th problem began when I found out it's non-bootable. Here's what I tried:

-PLoP boot floppy - chainloads succesfully to GRUB on the drive which boots the system
-GRUB boot floppy - not working. It doesn't detect the hard drive at all. I could have made the floppy incorrectly so I don't rule this one out completely as working.

I would go for the PLoP floppy but it doesn't boot straightaway, the boot is supposed to be unattended.

I can try connecting up a 3GB IDE HDD, putting kernel+initrd, booting from there with root as SATA partition. But then I wouldn't have any bay left if I'd want another drive.

I could also flash the BIOS with added ROM for this controller. However, I'd really like to make this one the last resort. The mobo I'm using is the best one out af all the old ones I have wink. I'd really hate to lose it due to a bad flash from which I can't recover easily. I have a similar board laying around with less features on it (6BX/ZX/VIA86 v1.2), I could do a test run on it if the flashing is really required.

Please, advise me. I don't know what to do.

EDIT: Fixed the text and added details.

Last edited by xc1024 (2010-08-07 23:04:08)

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#2 2010-08-08 10:51:49

R00KIE
Forum Fellow
From: Between a computer and a chair
Registered: 2008-09-14
Posts: 4,734

Re: VT6421A based SATA adapter non-bootable

I guess you really want to use that new shinny card you bought tongue but another option is to use something like this http://www.cooldrives.com/satoidecofor.html

It would allow you to still have 2 large hard disks installed and I guess it _should_ boot fine.


R00KIE
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#3 2010-08-08 19:40:04

xc1024
Member
Registered: 2009-11-10
Posts: 51

Re: VT6421A based SATA adapter non-bootable

Yes, you are right. I want to use it, if it wasn't the case I wouldn't buy it tongue.

As for the link, I was looking at something like that. The problem is, those things aren't exactly reliable (think "Made in China") or cost effective (12 GBP for 2 of those vs 6.15 for 1 adapter card).

Also, the thing is that I wanted to assemble this computer with as low costs as possible, ideally for free. I did have most of the hardware save for the HDD. I initially wanted an IDE 500GB but those were more expensive than equivalent SATA ones. So I just bought a 1.5TB SATA (which was a discount BTW). I already invested much more money than I wanted so I'm going to try and cope with what I have now.

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#4 2010-08-08 21:50:12

R00KIE
Forum Fellow
From: Between a computer and a chair
Registered: 2008-09-14
Posts: 4,734

Re: VT6421A based SATA adapter non-bootable

Another option might be booting of a flash disk, they are faster and more reliable than a floppy and you avoid the need to have a (probably noisy) old hard disk connected and using space. This is feasible if that board can boot from a usb drive and you have an unused flash drive lying around.

Apart from this option I guess that something could be done by booting of the network with pxe (never tried it and its like killing an ant with a cannon tongue ) or like you say, find a way to make the card bootable (which might not be easy).


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#5 2010-08-09 09:11:24

xc1024
Member
Registered: 2009-11-10
Posts: 51

Re: VT6421A based SATA adapter non-bootable

USB boot is unfortunately impossible with this mobo. If some motherboards from this time period don't even have onboard Ethernet port (which most people take for granted), one can only dream about something optional such as USB boot.

Network boot. Not a good idea. I don't know how to set it up and the only computer capable of network boot serving is in another room. It would also use up more electricity increasing cost and strain on the environment. Lastly, ironically, I intended that computer to host the network boot.

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#6 2010-08-09 09:54:40

thn81
Member
Registered: 2009-08-27
Posts: 88

Re: VT6421A based SATA adapter non-bootable

There are relatively inexpensive CompactFlash-to-IDE adapters which can be plugged directly into the IDE socket on the mainboard. They're supposed to be bootable as well, so maybe that's an option for you: a small CF-Card in an adapter on the mainboard, it can host the boot manager and the linux kernel.

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