DG43NB with PCI IDE controller boot problem

Is this card correctly configured in your motherboards BIOS as the BOOT device? If you have a read of the motherboard manual, it usually will tell you how to change the boot device order - you need to ensure your Silicon Image card is top of the list. You may then find that during boot, there are more options that pop up on screen allowing you to select which drive on the card you want to boot from. It's a long time since I used my Silicon Image card in a PC so my memory is a little rusty. It'd also be worth hunting down a manual for the card to read what that says about configuration as well.

I see your predicament now. Is there anything on the drive(s) you have connected to the card? If you haven't already updated your motherboards BIOS to the latest version, you should remove the IDE Controller card and perform the BIOS upgrade using the .bio file on a USB thumb drive method (or the Express method if you have a bootable Windows installation on a SATA drive hooked up to the motherboard. You could also check with the card manufacturer to see if THEY have a firmware update for the card. I know there's a BIOS download and Flashing Utility showing on Silicon Images website but this may not suit your card if it's not a reference design card. To update it, you may need to find an older computer, install the card in one of its PCI slots and then run the update from there.

You MAY find that the following helps your immediate situation:

1. Try and reduce the boot memory footprint on your system by disabling all unnecessary bootable options eg USB, PXE LAN Booting etc
   
2. Ensure any drive plugged into the card is totally blank at this stage of things
   
3. Try disconnecting any drives connected to the card - if this allows you to get past the current impass you may find you can either get into the motherboards BIOS and see whats going on/correctly select the card as the boot device (although I'm not sure it'll allow this with no drive connected). It may also allow you to use your existing computer to flash the cards own BIOS/firmware (if it's not already the latest).
   

Are you wanting the PATA IDE drive(s) to be bootable or just as a data volume? You may find it's easier all round to sell the PATA drive(s) and card second hand and buy an additional SATA drive to hook directly to your motherboard.

Faradey81 wrote:

 

I am already disabling all unnecessary bootable options eg USB, PXE LAN Booting etc.

I should have made it clearer, I meant *booting* from USB and not to disable the USB ports altogether - hopefully you figured that out. As you are only wanting a non-bootable data volume from these drives, it may even be possible to turn off the cards built in BIOS (or if that doesn't work, buy a non-bootable PATA IDE Controller card - the same manufacturers often make both types). This type of controller card is much more compatible with PCs because they don't have to hook into the boot menu at all and they work soley from drivers loaded during Windows startup.