PCA Forums

My new HDD with new mobo, cpu, memory, fresh XP Pro SP2 install are all finally running together happily

I have many files, programs, etc on my old SCSI HDDs that I'd like to move onto the new HDD BUT does anyone here know if it'll boot and run the SCSI HDDs now that I have the new SATA HDD running as its only primary HDD?

The primary SCSI HDD also has XP pro loaded so I'm thinking that if I now try adding the SCSI adaptor card with HDDs, they'll be a big conflict, major problems (possible).

Ideas?

Sure, I have enough parts to put those SCSI drives into yet another case and network them, just need to buy another case BUT can it all be run from one mobo?

The system will only boot off the bus that's been configured to be the boot in BIOS. In the boot order make sure that SATA is before SCSI in the boot order, or that SCSI is not on the boot list at all if possible.

yes you can run them on the same system, we have a server at my work which runs on SCSI and SATA only for hard drives without issues. If there are any problems, they are either driver related, or a cheap motherboard. There can be incompatiabilities though, you may want to do some searching on the chipsets to see if anyone else ran into any.

OK, I'll give it a try tonight. After my recent troubles trying to get this new system fully functional, I'm feeling a little "gun shy" at the moment.

yes you can. I have ru8n my past three systems that way.

Greg

Yep, works indeed!

It boots slower now but it's always on anyway so that's no big deal. The time lags from the initial boot screen until the windows logo screen finally shows up. I'd say it's a couple minutes (2-3?). It booted quicky with either the SATA or SCSI used seperately (before) but combined, it's taking longer.

Any ideas as to why and what I can do, if anything to speed that up?

If the delay is BEFORE the WinXP logo shows up then it's BIOS looking for something and waiting until it times out. Just a shot in the dark but maybe it's trying to detect a drive that's not connected? Check your BIOS settings.

I agree, it does seem to be doing that but I disabled every bootable item except the SATA HDD and that didn't make any difference. It booted quickly until I plugged in the SCSI card with its HDDs.
It detects the SCSI HDDs right away, not pausing there so I'm not sure why it's hanging up for a while.

This is a problem that I havent yet found a cure for. It'd be nice to keep the SCSI HDDs for extra storage BUT if this problem can't be fixed, I'll just not use those drives anymore. I've already copied all the files to the new HDD BUT I could use more HDD space.

Worst case senerio, I could always get another identical SATA HDD and run them mirrored in an array. I just hope that THAT won't be yet another hassle?

The SCSI might be hogging the PCI bus. Some SCSI cards are known to do that.

Also another difference is that the SCSI card does not load SCSI BIOS unless it detects SCSI hard drives. So it might be a SCSI BIOS issue. You may need a firmware update for the SCSI controller, or just newer drivers. If this is an old card the existing firmware may not properly support XP without an update.

If could also be a PCI IRQ channel sharing problem. Just like the SB Live, many SCSI controllers have PCI channel sharing issues. Just moving the SCSI controller to a different PCI slot *may* help.

I think it's a sharing thing, like the SB Live was. Before when I was waiting for the SATA HDD to be replaced (took 2 weeks), I was using the SCSI HDDs with that mobo and it was booting fine. SCSI drivers were the same, those loaded with WinXP.

It wouldn't hurt to install the proper SCSI card drivers so I'll do that later too.


It doesn't like the combo of the SATA HDD with the SCSI HDDs. I'll try the PCI card swap notion tonight after trying it with the proper SCSI card drivers and see if that matters.