Use Compact Express slot to interface eSATA

[Gary_H]

Hi,

I'm using an Embedded Controller PXI 8108, with a Compact Express slot.

I want to place the hard drive in an external enclosure and use an eSATA Compact Express interface to

connect to the enclosure.

There is a NI white paper (http://www.ni.com/white-paper/8604/en) which decribes the properties of the eSATA Compact Express card necessary

and I believe I have the correct card, see Solution 2 in white paper.

However when all is connected and powered the system does not boot.

The first thing I suspect is the BIOS Boot Order, but I see no way of choosing the Compact Express Slot/external

drive as a device from which to boot from 1st.

The Compact Express (eSATA) card was bought from Maplins (UK), part number: A34FK. The manufacturer

is st-lab.com , part no.: C-240 .

Any clues please ?

Gary.

[Josh_KNH]

Hi Gary,

I would suspect a couple scenarios:

(a) Your ExpressCard SATA adapter lacks the ability to be a boot device, or

(b) Your ExpressCard SATA adapter is bootable, but could not be configured by the BIOS, or

(c) Your ExpressCard SATA adapter is bootable, but was not correctly set as the first boot device in BIOS setup.

Scenario (a):

Here is a relevant snippet from the white paper you linked:

Another consideration is that ExpressCard eSATA adapters that use the PCI Express interface need to have an onboard Option ROM to allow OSs to boot from the external hard drive. Option ROM typically contains software, also called firmware, which is called by the BIOS of the embedded controller and informs the BIOS of the accessory’s functionality. As a general rule of thumb, if an ExpressCard eSATA supports some type of RAID, it most likely has an onboard Option ROM. 

In this situation, a different ExpressCard that provides an Option ROM would need to be used.  There is a recommended card in the white paper, although in truth it can be tricky to know without testing the ExpressCard unless you get lucky and see it documented on the specification sheet.

Scenario (b):

From BIOS Setup, ensure that the setting named "SCSI Drive Boot" (on the Boot Settings menu) is Enabled.

Although your device is not a SCSI device, this setting controls whether or not all disk based boot devices like SCSI (including a SATA adapter) can be set as bootable.

For good measure, I would also ensure that PXE Network Boot is Disabled to prevent other unrelated Option ROMs from loading and possibly conflicting.

Scenario (c):

The PXI-8108 BIOS boot menu has a tiered list of boot devices.  If your device is bootable, it may not initially show up on the top level list.  If, for example, more than one bootable hard drive exists, a new submenu item labeled: "Hard Drive BBS Priorities" would be generated on the Boot Setup menu page.  Go into that submenu and priortize your device to the top of the list.  Most likely it would be under "Hard Drive BBS Priorities", but I suggest doublechecking all the "Device" BBS Priorities entries that you see, if any.

-JoshH

[Gary_H]

Hi Josh,

I've purchased the NI recommended eSata Compact Express from Addonics.

Following the configuration advice in scenario (b), I move onto scenario (c) but find that the hard drive

does not appear as a boot device in the BIOS boot menu so I am unable to select.

This is the only device in the system so no "Hard Drive BBS Priorities" menu appears.

Before I obtain another eSata enclosure and cable to try, can you suggest anything else ?

thanks,

Gary.

[Josh_KNH]

Hi Gary,

Based on what you've done so far and some additional thinking on this issue, I've come up with three more possibilities that could be considered.  Some are more involved to investigate but I'm going to list it all here for you to consider.

(d) Your PXI-8108 is actually a PXI-8108 RT and you are trying to boot into LabVIEW Real-Time.

(e) The Addonics card has been "updated" since last it was tested by NI and no longer is bootable

(f) There is a problem with the PXI-8108 that prevents using option ROMs which we are overlooking.

Scenario (d):

If you are trying to boot LabVIEW Real-Time, there are some issues with trying to boot from external drives because by design LabVIEW RT wants to boot only from the internal drive.  There is more that can be discussed on this issue but I'll wait until I hear back on whether or not this is your situation.

Scenario (e) & (f):

The suggestion here is just basic isolation testing - divide and conquer.  If you have additional systems (laptop with an Expresscard slot?) that you could test the Addonics card on, that would help determine whether the problem follows the PXI-8108 or the ExpressCard.

Barring that, there is some information that could be read from the Addonics card to try and determine whether or not it should support an option ROM and mostly rule out Scenario (e) as the problem.  To read this information you would need to boot a PC or PXI controller to some OS like Windows or Linux while the Addonics card is plugged in and read from the Addonics card some values (known as the PCI configuration registers).  How this information is read depends on the OS in use - there are different utilities for Linux and Windows.  As this gets fairly involved and won't actually "solve" the problem, it's your call on whether to go down this road - let me know and I'll try to help though.

-JoshH

[Gary_H]

Hi Josh,

Thank you for the extra suggestions.

I did try a 2nd Drive Enclosure ( RS part number 706-7085) but this did not cure the problem.

Scenario (d):

The system is not booting into Labview RT, it's a Windows 7 setup.

Scenario (e):

The Addonics card was put into a Dell laptop and the BIOS Boot Order List was checked for an

additional device, but no extra device appeared alongside the laptops built in devices.

I interpret this result as meaning the Addonics card is not bootable.

I've attached a PDF\scan of the card's box to confirm it's the recommended card.

If you can recommend a Windows utility to check out the Addonics card, I'll pursue this avenue

but just out of curiosity.

Thanks,

Gary.

[Gary_H]

Hi,

Here's some advice from the Addonics manufacture which I'm in the process of trying:

The ADEXC34R5-2E has been discontinued for a long time now. It included the RAID BIOS required for building and managing SoftRAID sets. This includes an Option ROM initialization routine during the computer's boot process that initializes the card and starts the drives and any array if present.

The Computer's System BIOS must start this Option ROM during the boot process in order for the controller to be available as a boot device. I have seen a number of ExpressCard capable systems that do not do this. That is likely where the problem is.

To confirm the BIOS is actually present and simply not being called by the System BIOS during bootup, look at the card in Device Manager. If it's running under the "SoftRaid 5" driver it must have the RAID BIOS. If the RAID BIOS were not present, the SoftRAID 5 driver would not recognize it, it would be running under a different driver that does not mention RAID at all.

[Gary_H]

Hi,

Managed to try out the advice from Addonics.

Looked in Device Manager, with the card plugged in the front of the Controller, and the

card appeared but not under "SoftRAID 5".

Looks like the recommended Compact Express eSATA card is no longer bootable.

[Josh_KNH]

Hi Gary_H,

I apologize for not getting back to you sooner.  I was going to suggest that you use some kind of PCI utility like PCIScope or PCItree to read PCI configuration space.  There is some information from a device that can be read from PCI configuration space which will tell you definitively if a device has an option ROM allowing it to act as a boot device or not (essentially, the same information the BIOS itself looks for).

Since you have gotten an answer already from Addonics, I'm guessing you do not need to pursue using this card further, but let me know if otherwise.

-JoshH