Here's a tough one I'm dealing with. Posted in a couple of places and hope I can find a workaround. I have a MSI p6 diamond motherboard running Vista Ultimate that I have a large number of internal HD hooked up to. The board has 7 Sata ports and 1 IDE port. I have 2 HDs connected to the IDE. I have SATA port 6 & 7 attached to 2 drives in a raid 0 config (It uses a SIL 3531 controller on board) The other 5 SATA ports have 4 hard drives hooked up and One SATA DVD drive sh-s132L samsung. The problem is I can't get the CD to show on a boot drive menu. If I unplug one hard drive from the sata ports it will show up, but it gets booted off the list of 8 bootup devices if all the HDs are hooked up. This seems to probably be a BIOS limitation but I need a way to make the system drop one of the hard drives from the boot order list so I can at least boot from the cd drive on occasion. As it is now I have to open the machine up and physically unplug one HD from a SATA port then reboot and choose the CD drive as boot device. It seems strange the system would choose to toss off the cd drive as an alt boot device over one hard drive when the boot list is as long as as 8 devices. Any clues how to bypass this problem or how to fix it altogether? I have done all the firmware,bios,driver upgrades I can find to no avail.

Hmmm...

Have you considered the power supply being your limiting factor? How many Watts do you have now?

Here is a pretty handy tool for calculating your minimum power supply wattage: Newegg - Power Supply Calculator

Keep me posted!

You said,

I have 2 HDs connected to the IDE. I have SATA port 6 & 7 attached to 2 drives in a raid 0 config (It uses a SIL 3531 controller on board) The other 5 SATA ports have 4 hard drives hooked up and One SATA DVD drive sh-s132L samsung.

Then you said,

The problem is I can't get the CD to show on a boot drive menu.

What CD? Is this a separate CD drive? If so, where is this CD drive attached? Or did you mean a compact disk in the DVD drive?

And what do you mean by "boot drive menu"? Do you mean in the BIOS where you set the "Boot Order" or "Boot Sequence"? This is where you would set the CDROM as the first boot device.

Some BIOS setups also require you to set the DVD drive as the first "hard disk" too. Just make sure you set it back when done booting to the optical.



In the BIOS, do you have the CD set first?


Does the CD show up under My Computer?

I recommend the eXtreme PSU Calculator Lite to determine power supply unit (PSU) requirements. Plug in all the hardware you think you might have in 2 or 3 years (extra drives, bigger or 2nd video card, more RAM, etc.). Be sure to read and heed the notes at the bottom. I recommend you set Capacitor Aging to 30%, and if you participate in distributive computing projects (e.g. BOINC or Folding@Home), I recommend setting TDP to 100%. Research your video card and pay particular attention to the power supply requirements for your card listed on your video card maker's website. Then look for power supply brands listed under the "Good" column of PC Mechanic's PSU Reference List. Ensure the supplied amperage on the +12V rails of your chosen PSU meets the requirements of your video card. Don't try to save a few dollars by getting a cheap supply. Digital electronics, including CPUs, RAM, and today's advanced graphics cards, need clean, stable power. A good, well chosen supply will provide years of service and upgrade wiggle room. I strongly recommend you pick a supply with an efficiency rating equal to, or greater than 80%. Look for the 80 Plus - EnergyStar Compliant label. And don't forget to budget for a good UPS with AVR (automatic voltage regulation).