Incompatible PCI HD controllers?

[larrymoencurly]

I have an ECS nForce6M-M ver. 2 mobo (nForce 520 chipset) and can't boot normally to Windows XP Home from any PATA HD connected to a PCI HD controller (Promise Ultra 100 or Silicon Image 680). Booting takes a long, long time and includes a 15-minute pause when the screen is blank, and Windows XP runs very sluggishly when it finally does boot.

During boot, Windows hangs for a long time when MUP.SYS is loaded.

Everything is fine if the boot HD is connected to the mobo's PATA controller, but there's only one PATA connector.

I have the newest BIOSes for the PCI controllers and mobo and the latest Windows drivers.

No other mobo I have behaves this way, including an ECS GeForce 6100.

 

[larrymoencurly]

Anybody?

 

[unhappy_mage]

Is there drive activity during the 15 minute pause? IIRC mup.sys is the last file to be loaded during startup, so it's probably not related to the problem. Do the onboard controllers behave the same way? Is DMA on once it finally does boot?

 

[larrymoencurly]

There's no drive activity during the 15 minute pause, and I don't know if DMA is in use, but I did have each PCI controller's Windows driver installed. When I use the onboard controller (only one socket for it), everything works fine.