bokeny{at}earthlink.net wrote:
 
> For the last two weekends I am fighting the eCS v1.2 installation.  Note:
> This is not an eCS problem!
 
> Hardware - ASUS A7V333 main board, Tekram DC-390U2W, 2 IBM SCSI drives,
> Plextor CD-ROM, 1.44 floppy drive, 4 IDE fixed drives.  No other boards
> besides video in the machine.
 
> Tekram BIOS loads, recognizes the attached three SCSI devices.
 
> I can boot the machine with a salvaged IDE hard drive with eCS 1.0
> installed.  All SCSI drives can be accessed from eCS.
 
> Trying to install from floppy drive I receive 'Read Error!' as message.
 
> Placed W2k into the CD-ROM drive, nothing happens with the CD, the
> computer goes past everything than displaying the Boot Manager menu.

> Here lies some sort of a problem.  The CD-ROM does not boot eCS 1.1 nor
> 1.2.  As I mentioned before, it does not boot Windows 2000 either.  The
> components for this system were purchased about a year ago, but I just
> retired and have time to put it together.

Broken motherboard BIOS are common. Is there a newer one available for
yours? If not, probably the only solution is to install an IDE CD drive,
unless you want to buy yet another new motherboard.

I bought an Abit AI7 a year ago.
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/techspec.php?categories=1&model=147
It came with BIOS version 1.4. I immediately discovered that the boot
splash screen disable function in the BIOS did not work. Also, I could
not boot from my SCSI CD drive on LSI Logic HBA. So, I "upgraded" to
BIOS v1.6. This fixed the splash and SCSI CD boot problems, but
introduced new problems that have not been corrected in BIOS v1.7 or
BIOS v1.9.

I know the new problems are BIOS problems for two reasons:

1-LSI Logic support confirmed this broken BIOS problem is common

2-I had the inverse problem with a Giga-Byte motherboard also purchased
at the same time as the AI7 that uses the same CPU and chipset and BIOS
type:
http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoar...PE1000%20Pro%20(Rev%202.0).htm

When I bought the Giga-Byte, it was impossible to boot from anything
other than a floppy unless a hard disk was attached to the LSI Logic
21002 HBA. A BIOS upgrade immediately solved that problem.

When I bought my AI7, it was not necessary to have a hard disk attached
to the LSI 21002 in order to boot from PATA, SATA, or CD. With BIOS 16
and above, without a hard disk attached to the HBA, boot from anything
except floppy is impossible. Without a floppy in the drive, the system
reports a boot device not ready error, regardless how any BIOS boot
settings are set.

I tried both my LSI 21002's with both motherboards. Both have the same
(lastest) LSI BIOS. Both behave the same. They work as expected in other
systems.
-- 
"He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and
whoever lives and believes in me will never die." John 11:25 NIV

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata  ***  http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/



 
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