Re: Is it possible to boot from PCI-IDE controller?

From: BK (bk_usenet_at_yahoo.co.uk)
Date: 04/14/04 

Date: 14 Apr 2004 11:34:28 -0700

Dances With Crows <danSPANceswitTRAPhcrows@usa.net> wrote ...

> The floppy controller is separate from the IDE controller, so if both
> floppy boot and hard disk boot fail, I question whether the motherboard
> is worth saving. It probably has other things wrong with it.

Well, I wanted to run this thing as a router because it is a very
small very slim box. I already disabled all the integrated peripherals
such as parallel port, serial ports, USB, audio etc., so if any of
that doesn't work properly, I couldn't care less. According to the
BIOS the RAM is ok, so as long as the onboard ethernet and the PCI
slots work, I'll be fine.

All I need is boot an embedded Linux off a 32MB Compact flash memory
card.

Then, if I come across another i430TX motherboard for peanuts at some
point in the furture, I can always take the opportunity and replace
it.

What I don't want to do is throw money at this only to find out this
or that idea didn't work. But I can pick up a PCI-IDE controller from
a second hand computer shop for about $3, so I'll "risk" it and try.

>
> > Now I'd like to know if it is in principle possible to boot off a disk
> > attached to a PCI-IDE controller instead of the internal controller
>
> Should be no problem. Most of the PCI IDE cards out there have BIOSes
> in them that can handle booting off a disk

I see. How do you access the IDE board's BIOS though? I am wondering
how the PC will know that it has to boot from a disk attached to the
PCI-IDE controller. Will it be smart enough to figure this out by
itself if the onboard controller is disabled?

>--not a CD-ROM, many IDE cards
> can't handle ATAPI devices very well.

that won't be a problem because the compact flash memory card has
already got the embedded Linux installed so I won't need neither
floppy nor CD to install it.

> In an x86, the motherboard is the most difficult
> thing to diagnose problems with and the most difficult thing to replace
> when it breaks.

thanks for the advice
bk

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