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Thread ID: 68092	2006-04-17 02:01:00	SATA drive and IDE drive with XP boot problems	stevesumner (4849)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
446857	2006-04-18 01:07:00	My Bios options: Dell Dimension 4600 manual (support.dell.com) In the "boot sequence" there are only three options: Floppy CD-Rom drive Hard Drive C: Hard drive C: seems to be the SATA drive by default. AS you can see from the above link Drive Configuration is as follows: Diskette Drive A: SATA Primary Drive: SATA Secondary Drive: Primary Drive 0: Primary Drive 1: Secondary Drive 0: Secondary Drive 1: IDE Drive UDMA:	stevesumner (4849)
446858	2006-04-18 01:39:00	Leave this option on SATA Primary Drive: Displays SATA primary hard drive (if installed). The default is Auto. These 2 may have to be on AUTO Primary Drive 0: (This maybe the primary IDE). Displays primary hard drive 0. The default is Auto Primary Drive 1: (This maybe the SATA). Displays primary hard drive 1 (if installed). The default is Off. What header is the SATA connected to on the mobo?? Is the header on the mobo labelled (like 0,1, or 1, and 2)?	Speedy Gonzales (78)
446859	2006-04-18 01:59:00	SATA is connected to SATA 0 on the mobo. Do you think I should try SATA 1? What difference would it make? Anyway, here are some pics of my Bios: Bios1 (www.geocities.com) Bios2 (www.geocities.com) Drivecfg (www.geocities.com) HDdrivesequeence (www.geocities.com) bootsequence (www.geocities.com) startscreen (www.geocities.com) F12menu (www.geocities.com) That last pic is a bit hard to see but I believe option 1 is "Normal". Cheers	stevesumner (4849)
446860	2006-04-18 02:30:00	You could try the SATA in 1 on the mobo. I would also make sure the data cable and the power cable aren't kinked or something, or coming out. And change sata secondary drive to hdd in the BIOS. Then, see what happens.	Speedy Gonzales (78)
446861	2006-04-18 03:19:00	Tried that, same old story, Bios tries to boot from SATA and can't, have to ctrl + alt + del then hit F12, then choose option 3 from the list "Primary Master Drive" Option 5 "Hard-disk drive C:" is the SATA drive.	stevesumner (4849)
446862	2006-04-19 22:27:00	Well, in case anyone is interested, I fixed my problem by installing Linux on the SATA drive. Spent a few days figuring out why Grub couldn't get Windows to boot before I changed the bootloader to LILO and now it all works!! If my stupid BIOS could allow me to select different hard drives to boot from I would have had no problems. Anyone know if I can upgrade my bios for my MOBO which is a Dell Dimension 4600 model 02y832 current Bios version is A12. Dell website has the A12 as the most recent but it is about two years old. I guess they are not updating this MOBO anymore?	stevesumner (4849)
446863	2007-02-07 05:01:00	stevesumner - I definitely could use your help - are you still watching this thread / forum? I have the exact same problem tonight (although how I got here is a little different) . I am trying to add a SATA drive for expanded data storage, but this darn 4600 of mine (with A12 BIOS) looks to the SATA drive first for the OS and I can't seem to modify anything in the BIOS to tell it to look to the IDE first . Did you fix this for Windows using some capability in Linux? Can you provide more detail to get me on the right path? Hopeful - Joe	evergreen97 (10226)
446864	2007-02-07 10:46:00	You only found a workaround, and a good reason to steer well away from DELL in the future.	Rob99 (151)
446865	2007-02-12 03:18:00	I have an ASUS A8N-SLI mobo with both SATA and PATA drives but my BIOS has a section to select which HDD to boot from. Yours seems to have this, too, under Hard drive sequence. It has "1. System BIOS boot devices" - is there no lower level menu where you can select WHICH BIOS bootable drive?	linw (53)
446866	2007-02-22 02:36:00	stevesumner - I definitely could use your help - are you still watching this thread / forum? I have the exact same problem tonight (although how I got here is a little different) . I am trying to add a SATA drive for expanded data storage, but this darn 4600 of mine (with A12 BIOS) looks to the SATA drive first for the OS and I can't seem to modify anything in the BIOS to tell it to look to the IDE first . Did you fix this for Windows using some capability in Linux? Can you provide more detail to get me on the right path? Hopeful - Joe If you don't want to install an OS on your SATA, I think you will need to use a third party boot loader installed on your SATA to get your machine to switch to the IDE for booting . BootIT NG is free and may work for you, I believe there are quite a few free boot utilities that you could try . Acronis OS selector worked for me in the past but it's not free . It's a real bugger that there is no simple option in the BIOS to do this, the only other way is to manually select your primary master drive (option 3?) when you boot up (Power on > Dell screen > press F12 to go to boot options > option 3 > enter) Hope this helps . Steve BTW: At the moment I have Vista installed on my SATA and XP on my IDE . A bit of a nightmare to get this setup booting properly, but I sorted it in the end . If you are interested in how I got Vista setup to boot from the SATA and also be able to boot XP on the IDE (using Vista's bootmanager), let me know .	stevesumner (4849)
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