[Techtalk] Simply Hardware 3

[Sophie]

On Sun, Aug/18/02 02:58:31PM +1000, Jenn Vesperman wrote:
> On Sun, 2002-08-18 at 13:23, Andrew wrote:
> > 	At power up the screen checks the bios for the vid card, 
> > memory the says press F8 or Del. for set up. I do and it seems to 
> > continue on and go to raid set-up on its own.

Odd. Who makes your bios? (Award, AMI etc)


> > ..lists the four drives 
> > and "says SiI striped set ### and lists the correct combined drive 
> > size, then and thenn... stops with a square flashing prompt------
> 
> This doesn't feel right to me.

Me either - what raid controller is it?

Is the raid controller on the motherboard or a PCI card?


> It shouldn't be trying to boot at all at this point, not if you've
> pressed the button for setup.
> 
> > 	I wonder if it is a matter of pressing F8 fast enough? I am 
> > going to try that one more time tonight.

I think it's probbaly not a matter of speed :)

Remove the raid controller (if it's a PCI card), or disable it with a jumper (if it's on the motherboard - your manual will point you at the right jumper), and see if you can enter the bios setup.

 
> > 	Thank You, it is encouraging to have help, and it would be 
> > very nice if I did not need to take this to the computer shop to 
> > figure it out. This could be especially true if they install a 
> > floppy, which I might try on tomorrow(Sunday) if we run out of ideas 
> > here.

I dont see how installing a floppy would help - it sounds like things are getting confused elsewhere. My guess is that the raid controller's bios is conflicting with the interupt for accessing the keyboard, which is also being watched by the motherboard's bios. (that's a guess :)

Good luck!

- sophie