Not enough space to copy pci option rom

[Comage]

Hi folks, I'm trying to set up a SATA RAID 1 mirror with my onboard RAID controller (AMD 785G chipset), and when I turn the RAID function on in my BIOS setup, I get the above error message.

I have an Adaptec 29320A-R in this system as well, with 1 SCSI drive hooked up.

I googled around and it seems like it's an incompatibility issue between my SCSI card and the onboard RAID.

Or is there something else I can do to get this rig working?

Thanks in advance.

[BipolarBill]

There are probably too many bootable ROM devices on this board. The onboard SATA RAID counts as one. The Adaptec counts as two. If you have a video card, that counts as three. The motherboard itself is the primary ROM device. That's too many. One of them has to be bumped in order to boot and the motherboard is trying to tell you that. The video card, Adaptec and SATA controller are all PCI devices. One of them has to go *or* one of them has to have it's "bootability" disabled. I would recommend the Adaptec because it is configurable. In other words, disable the boot ROM in the Adaptec setup.

[Comage]

Hello BPBill, thanks for the advice. It's nice to see you still active here after so long!

I currently have my SCSI drive set as the boot drive (my OS is installed on it). Can I still turn off the boot ROM on the card without affecting this set up?

[BipolarBill]

Sorry, no. You may, however, be able to disable the boot ROM for the SATA RAID. Look carefully in BIOS Setup for this option.

[Comage]

Yes I currently have the SATA RAID disabled already.

I realised that Windows does not support RAID1 (only RAID0).

I am however quite reluctant to setup a stripe partition with the software-based solution, let alone do RAID1 with the Windows XP hack.

This is a real bummer as I had just obtained two units of 1TB IDE hard drives..

[BipolarBill]

Windows supports all types of RAID. It's really not up to Windows. The RAID BIOS sets up the drives. Windows uses whatever the RAID BIOS sets up and sees it as one drive. I really don't get all of this talk about hardware vs. software RAID. As far as I'm concerned, it's all done at the controller level.

[Comage]

But isn't it true that to have mirror RAID enabled in WinXP, you have to hack the RAID drivers?

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/23...ware-raid-hack

Not to mention there will be the risk of the next SP or patch breaking the mirror RAID since it is software-enabled and not hardware-enabled per se.

[Midknyte]

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/23...ware-raid-hack

I think they are talking about the Windows dynamic disk RAID1, which is not the same thing as a RAID controller card.

When you set up a RAID1 array on the controller, it is invisible to the OS. I.E. XP would think it is on a single disk.

[BipolarBill]

Yes - if you are setting up the array before Windows even boots up, the array will be seen as a single drive in Windows and unfazed by any software update.

[Comage]

I meant to say that I originally wanted to setup a RAID1 using my onboard motherboard RAID controller.

However I get the above-mentioned error message (thread subject title), and I am unable to remove my SCSI card nor my VGA card.

Hence, I thought of implementing the software RAID via Windows XP. But I realised that Windows XP only supports RAID0 by default. RAID1 has to be "hacked" per se in order to enable it.

Which would make the array susceptible to an outage in the even of a WindowsUpdate patch breaking it.

So I am now stuck with 2 units of 1TB SATA drives.

[BipolarBill]

Stuck? No - you can use a single drive for storing your data and set up automatic backup of that drive with something like Acronis True Image.

[Comage]

Ah yes.. thanks for the advice BPBill... although that solution is somewhat more of a "manual" and tedious alternative. Thanks!