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The thread discusses expanding the limited boot options on an ASRock 890 FX Deluxe 4 motherboard, which only supports four drives in the boot priority menu. The original poster considers using PCIe SATA add-on cards to increase drive connectivity and asks if such cards would enable additional boot entries. Contributors suggest that while the cards add more storage drives, they may not automatically extend the boot menu options unless the BIOS recognizes them, with one user sharing personal experience of successfully booting from drives connected to a RAID controller card. Overall, the discussion indicates that hardware additions can increase storage capacity, but boot menu limitations depend on BIOS support and configuration.
seekermeister

seekermeister

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Thread Author #1
My motherboard (ASRock 890 FX Deluxe 4) only has space for 4 hard drives in the boot priority section, which also controls how many drives are listed in the BBS Popup Menu. At the moment, that is adequate, because one of my 5 internal drives is nothing more than storage for backup images, and my 2 external eSATA drives are also storage drives (not sure if my docked USB drive would be bootable or not?), but liking to have as many options as possible, I'm wondering if there is a way to gain additional boot options, in case I find some new OS that I want to install?
 

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Jimbo22
I don't have one, so I can't say personally how that would be handled. If I was to guess I would say with the driver/software that get installed that the BIOS would see it as additional ports. Here is a quote from one of the reviews from the same link I posted.
Although it doesn't say it anywhere, it can indeed be used to add 4 individual drives. Just install the drivers and skip the RAID setup. I can't comment on the RAID features or performance since I'm not using it in this manner.
- That's about it. It works, not much more to say.

The rest of the reviews say pretty much the same thing for adding additional drives for storage. But is seem fairly straight forward with the process of being recognized in the BIOS.
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seekermeister

seekermeister

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but while that card would add connection for additional drives, and would have a BIOS screen for setting up raid, it still wouldn't add anything more than the original 4 spaces in the boot menu...would it? In fact, I don't thnk that it would list it's own drives in the boot menu, if all of the internal drives connecting directly to the motherboard were plugged in...Or is there something that I'm missing?
 

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Jimbo22

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#4
I don't have one, so I can't say personally how that would be handled. If I was to guess I would say with the driver/software that get installed that the BIOS would see it as additional ports. Here is a quote from one of the reviews from the same link I posted.
Although it doesn't say it anywhere, it can indeed be used to add 4 individual drives. Just install the drivers and skip the RAID setup. I can't comment on the RAID features or performance since I'm not using it in this manner.
- That's about it. It works, not much more to say.

The rest of the reviews say pretty much the same thing for adding additional drives for storage. But is seem fairly straight forward with the process of being recognized in the BIOS.
 

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badrobot

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#5
I do have a 2-port SATA RAID controller card. And yes, it does list itself on boot menu. On the photo below, I only have 1 hard drive connected to the controller card (one spare available). All 4 mobo SATA ports are occupied by 3 hard drives and a blu-ray optical drive.

An image from 'Boot Menu'. BIOS boot order settings and a PC with a removable hard drive dock in the front panel.


Your other option is to get a 5.25" bay hot-swappable hard drive rack that you can connect directly to a SATA port on the motherboard. (Mine comes with a built-in fan and LCD temp display with fan controller). You can mount any hard drive you want anytime like a cassette tape and dismount a hard drive like a USB device by using "Safely Remove" feature of the PC.

An image from 'Boot Menu'. BIOS boot order settings and a PC with a removable hard drive dock in the front panel.


Below that 3.5" drive rack is the same hard drive rack for two 2.5" SSD or HDD.

An image from 'Boot Menu'. BIOS boot order settings and a PC with a removable hard drive dock in the front panel.



This hard drive racking system can help you save power by pulling out the hard drives if you are not using them. Which in turn also helps prolong your hard drive's life span caused by wear and tear due to unnecessary spinning when not in use. But of course with proper hard drive handling. 🙂




....
 

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seekermeister

seekermeister

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Thread Author #7
Badrobot,

I'm not ready to dive in as deep as you are swimming. Your rig is pretty fancy...even if it is white. 🙂 As is too often the case, I was wrong about the boot menu being limited to only 4 drives. That is because I thought the reason that one of my WDC 1TB drives didn't show was because of the SATA slot that I had it connected to. I was more alarmed when I tried switching cables, that the Seagate no longer appeared either, and the BIOS run would hang a significant amount while trying to detect drives. I thought that I must have lost both of them, but wasn't ready to accept that two drives would fail simutaneously. After confirming that the Seagate was dead, I also tested the WDC drive in the docking station on the other computer, and it ran okay.

After yanking the Seagate, the WDC now works in the desktop. I have no idea of why one would effect the other, but it did. Sometimes it seems that all that I have to do is to look crossed-eyed at a drive and it will keel over dead. It's ironic that the oldest drive I have that is still working is a Maxtor almost 9 years old. I would still try to buy Maxtors, except that since Seagate bought them out, I don't trust them any longer either.

The bottom line is that the boot menu is now seeing 6 drives, including the 2 external ones, plus one of my optical drives. Still haven't tried the USB docked drive yet, but if that also works, I'll be set for a while, Because I now have one empty drive bay to fill, and I'm not certain when that will happen.
 

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badrobot

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The 2 sets of drive racks are not a very expensive add-ons. The 3.5" rack is $35 and the dual 2.5" rack is $20 before taxes. You can probably find cheaper brands.

Sent from my HTC One X using WindowsForum mobile app
 

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seekermeister

seekermeister

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That's something for me to keep in mind for the future, but since I now have an empty drive bay as it is, it's not something that I need now. Besides, I have all of my exterior bays filled with optical drives and a fan controller and floppy.
 

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