IP35 Pro / RAID / DVDRW wont boot

[ncjok]

Although I was unable to find good search results, I'm hoping someone will have come across this issue before and a solution is at hand

relevant h/w:
Abit IP35 Pro S775 mobo
2x Maxtor Diamondmax22 SATA-II HDD
1x Pioneer DVR-215 SATA DVD rewriter
1x Sony floppy drive

The system is brand new and the drives unformatted. I would like to RAID the two HDDs. What I'm finding, and hoping there is a workaround for, is that with the OnChip SATA Device enabled and set to RAID the system will not boot from the floppy or optical drive (which I want to use for fdisk partitioning and OS installation respectively).

- With the OnChip SATA Device mode set to IDE, the HDDs and optical drive are recognised on the first POST screen.
- When set to RAID, which I need to access the controller screen to build an array, the HDDs and optical drive are recognised on the second (Intel) screen but not in the BIOS.

I was hoping the system would be smart enough to allow me to run a couple of SATA drives in RAID and use a SATA optical drive. Is there actually an incompatibility here?

Advice appreciated, thanks.

 

[Abz]

I think as long as they are recognised in the Raid setup, you dont need to worry about BIOS.

Am not 100% sure coz am currently experiencing Raid issues on my IP35 mobo.

 

[BUFF]

Don't use RAID myself so other than pointing you to some guides can't help too much.
1 thing to watch for though is that often the ODD will be shown in the BIOS as an explicit model no. rather than a generic "CD/DVD ROM" entry - it's often something like 2nd last in the boot device list if you scroll right down (the list extends past the window).

 

[ncjok]

Thanks BUFF, you were spot on. I had originally selected "SATA CDROM" as the boot device but later found a drive-specific listing down near the bottom