[K12OSN] sata as secondary HD - server won't boot [OT]

["Terrell Prudé, Jr."]

Carl Keil wrote:

>Hey Folks,
>
>I dropped a sata drive in my Dell 400sc k12 server and got the home
>directory moved there.  Rebooted a few times, everything was hunky dory, so
>I proceed with a clean reinstall of k12ltsp on the ata drive.  Now, the
>server will only boot if the sata drive is disconnected.  I think I hosed
>the proprietary MBR on the "C:" drive of the server(the original ata drive),
>so it thinks the sata is the "C:".  (There is very annoying windows
>centricness in the BIOS where the "C:" is the only hard drive boot option.)
>I really feel like this is a bios boot order problem, but I need to be able
>to tell the dell to boot of the primary IDE before the sata.  But wouldn't
>it go there when it didn't find anything bootable on the sata buss?  Anyway,
>does anyone have a clue what to do?  I need the sata back because it's got
>/home on it.
>
>ck
>  
>

I'm not familiar with this specific Dell model, but after searching 
their site, it looks like a new enough model that it should still be 
covered under the Dell warranty.  Note, though, that Red Hat Linux 9.0 
and RHEL 3.0 are actually listed as supported OS's, so just tell 'em 
you're running RHL 9.  :-)

There shouldn't be any "proprietary MBR" format, since Dell supports RHL 
on these beasties.  Remember that Windows OS's themselves need to run on 
multiple types of boxes and mobo chipsets, and thus for that, MS stays 
pretty vanilla.  Not to knock what you're saying; I'm just thinking that 
maybe there's a BIOS option that's getting overlooked.  I just built a 
box w/ both ATA and SATA, and, just having fun going through the BIOS 
options, I discovered an option for "replace primary IDE channel with 
SATA."  You might look for something like that as well.  I agree with 
you on that there absolutely should be the ability to boot from the ATA 
drive even when one or more SATA drive(s) is/are present.

If Dell support cannot or will not help you, then I'd suggest sending it 
back, getting your money back, and rolling your own.  You *know* you'll 
have standard hardware that way, and I have yet to have a problem when 
going this route.  If that happens, we on the list can give you plenty 
of inexpensive HW suggestions for K12LTSP.  :-)

BTW, I just built another Dual Athlon 2GHz w/ 4GB DRAM, this time using 
twin 160GB SATA drives for /home (software RAID 1) and one 40GB ATA 
drive for the OS.  This thing is a freakin' monster!  :-)  I haven't 
tried any timing tests yet, but it sure feels fast as greased lightning, 
including for disk xfers.  Yes, I know, SCSI RAID 5's better/faster, but 
since it came outta mah own pokket, SATA was good enough.  All in a 
really cool case...for less than $2000.  :-)

--TP
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