Felix Miata wrote:
Does your Dell BIOS boot config menu allow to include addin devices?
---- The built-in INTEL Sata has a port out the back for eSATA. That can either be enabled or disabled. Unlike the 3 internal SATA ports (mostly used for optical drives), if it is enabled and no cable is present, no error message is displayed on boot (vs. enabled-internal SATA + disconnected power or cable => bios boot displays error and waits for a key to continue). The order of the other, SAS controller and any addin-cards can also be specified in the bios. Then it scans those cards on boot -- from that point you can choose which drives are boot drives and which order to try them in. (Precision 7600; PowerEdge T610 has similar setup -- but no eSATA port -- it does let me choose the boot drives to try and their order. I have an external-SAS port card (LSI) that gets scanned for drives 1st so it comes up with sda+sdb. sdc & sdd are internal drives -- w/boot and OS on sdc.
Dells are really persnickity about having HDs added or removed. I don't remember ever seeing one's BIOS present any option to allow a HD connected to an eSATA addin card as an explicit boot choice to be preferred to the 4 more or less standard options, floppy, OM, HD, network/PXE. Even if they were, I wouldn't be wanting them even as an option, much less preferred to internally installed options.
It's "like" the optical disc, -- if there is no bootable media in it, then it gets ignored, but if there is, it will boot from it. Can config USB similarly, I believe, but I've never done it. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org