Install a PCI add in card for SATA ports

This problem may be at the BIOS level of the motherboard:

I got an inexpensive PCI to SATA add-in card for extra ports on an old Biostar MCP6PB motherboard.

Biostar has the AHCI/RAID driver available for download at their home site. I got the driver and put it on floppy for Windows XP-- (do not know how my other installation of Win 7 Ultimate handles the floppy at all.)

The purpose of the board is for using Ghost to clone backup. The Biostar only has two SATA ports on the mainboard and I now have three SATA devices. The new board SATA ports are not recognized by the Ghost program which autoloads from CD-- only one of two is seen.

Trying to configure the BIOS for RAID turned off everything and so I reset the BIOS to defaults via their menu.

The Phoenix Award BIOS N61PC M2S

shows

(Under IDE Function Setup)

Raid Enable RAID Disabled
SATA 1 Primary RAID Disabled
SATA 2 Primary RAID Disabled

A driver is not an issue in this case. If Ghost on dvd/cd will not run are there other software that would not have this problem? I have Hirens but I don't think that effects operation of Ghost recognizing this card.

Apparently my new board is not Plug and Play.

 

Do you see the card being recognized at boot? Usually you'll see a black screen with white text that may say something about SATA...

 

When a device like a dvd drive is attached to the card, it is recognized in Win 7 x64.
In Win XP it looks for installed RAID drivers (via the F6 on the install disk is my assumption) but I have not done that driver install. I just made a fresh backup with other gear to try that when needed

At the BIOS level it will not boot to DVD/CD for an ISO. I double checked the boot sequence.

One other thing I did was move the dvd cd to the mainboard SATA and swapped over the backup drive to the card. Then my dvd/ISO booted but saw only one drive.

I do not know if there are PCI settings for the single PCI slot on the board.

 

What card do you have?

 

It's just something off of ebay. I'll look for a brand but the packaging was generic. I have both Startech and Rosewill add-in boards and the RAID software for those.


The controller chip is marked as follows:

VIA
VT6421A
1409CD TAIWAN
2IA0028471

I will try some other things-- access one of the two other SATA jacks
on the board. There is also an IDE header on this board.


The board says "Passed." ;-) It worked someplace. And we have noted it works in the operating system just not with a stand alone cd loaded ISO.

 

Here is a quotation from a google search which shows the same controller name, a similar problem and the controller number.


"I have tried to install a Seagate Baraccuda 7200 drive with a new PCI card Pluscom VT6421A on my Matsonic MS8147C+v.10 M/B. I have cloned my hard disc and can see the disc in the control panel and in explorer, but I cannot get the computer to boot from my new hard disc. I do not know what settings to change in my bios and it does not pick up automatically. Can anybody help?
I am running XP ." close quote.



I'll see if 'Pluscom" has anything.

 

An update:

I moved the card to my more recent machine which is an MSI mb.
BIOS does not detect my Asus dvd drive from one of the card jacks.

Could this be a firmware problem for an Asus DVD/CD DRW 24B1ST

?

Manufacture date was 2011. I'll see if there's any firmware news.