Re: SCSI cdrom boot problem

["SN_Diamond" <Norman.Diamond@example.com>]

Tobias Diedrich wrote:
> SN_Diamond wrote:
> > > Bruno Raoult wrote:
> > >
> > > > The Bios is supposed to boot first on CDROM, then on SCSI device (I
> > > > tried also to boot first on SCSI, with the same success).
> >
> > I would consider booting first on CD to be an experiment, since the average
> > BIOS probably means an ATAPI (IDE) CD for that setting.  I think that
> > booting first on SCSI should do what you told the SCSI card to do.
>
> Booting first on SCSI usually means the integrated SCSI BIOS (Many BIOSes have
> an integrated SCSI BIOS for the sym53c8xx or some chip like that IIRC).
> I wouldn't expect that to change anything if it's an external SCSI card.

I thought booting first on SCSI meant handing boot control over to the SCSI
BIOS that is found on the SCSI card (if such is installed).  After all, the
motherboard's BIOS already handed control over to the SCSI BIOS on the SCSI
card (if such is installed) for SCSI device enumeration.

Example operation with SCSI card being installed with SCSI BIOS:  During
early stage of motherboard's BIOS startup, it detects a SCSI card with SCSI
BIOS and calls the SCSI BIOS to do its own user interface (options settable
independently of the motherboard's BIOS) and device enumeration.  SCSI BIOS
finds hard disk with capacity greater than 8GB.  But SCSI card was sold in
1999 when vendor didn't foresee the need to cope with hard disks greater
than 8GB, and vendor kindly didn't inform purchaser.  Therefore SCSI BIOS
hangs and machine cannot be booted.

Example operation with SCSI card being installed without SCSI BIOS:  During
early stage of motherboard's BIOS startup, it detects a SCSI card but no
SCSI BIOS because a socket on the SCSI card is mysteriously empty (wonder
how that happened, and why).  Motherboard's BIOS proceeds to try to boot IDE
hard disk using on-board IDE controller, and succeeds.  Ages later, the OS
detects the SCSI card, observes that the BIOS didn't enumerate the devices,
and loads its own drivers and enumerates the devices.