How to bypass an insistent, pesky ROM

Long version:

We have a slightly ageing, but still very serviceable server that we wanted to put out in the 'just-look-after-some-media-pasture' for its final connected days. We had to add some additional drive-capacity to it and ran into a problem when we wanted to add the third SATA-drive, since there are only two slots on the motherboard.

We had a RoHS SATA4000 Serial ATA 4-channel PCI card floating around with nothing to do and I thought it could make itself handy by helping 'iggy' (our pet-name for the old server) to handle more SATA drives. I plugged it into the PCI-slot that looked eager to accept the SATA4000, plugged the additional SATA-drive into it and switched on the server expectantly.

Alas, it booted up to a point where it asked for me to press Ctr+S or F4 to configure some RAID facility, showed the SATA-drive id of the drive I connected to it ... and then it just hangs there ... no matter how many times I press Ctrl+S or F4.

So I rebooted (Ctrl+Alt+Del) with the intention to go fiddle around in the BIOS. The server has an Intel motherboard - Intel Server Board SE7210TP1 - and one has to press F2 to gain access to the BIOS. As soon as the machine started rebooting, I started pressing F2 continuously, but I might as well not have been there - I was ignored flatly and the machine proceeded exactly as before and obstinately went to the 'configure RAID' point and stayed there.

After many attempts including Googling for motherboard manuals, SATA4000 card manuals, downloading the pdf's and reading (okay ... scanning!) them, I asked an experienced sysadmin-friend who suggested the first, simple and obvious break-through step: "Remove the SATA4000" card altogether and THEN try to access the BIOS.

Voila! F2 to access BIOS suddenly worked! Since I thought that it was maybe trying to boot from the other drive, I had a look at the Boot Sequence and Boot Device settings first. I limited them to CDROM and Boot Hard Drive, disabling the possibility of using any of the other drives for booting. I also had a look at the PCI-settings but did not notice anything (at the time) that screamed 'Change Me!' at me. I saved the settings ... shut the machine down ... added the SATA4000 again ... and rebooted expectantly ... DAMN! ... same problem.

Okay ... out with the SATA4000 again ... back into the BIOS ... gravitated to the PCI-configuration settings again (Advanced->PCI Configuration) and asked my friend what are these 'Slot 1 etc Option ROM Enabled/Disabled' all about? And what is 'Slot 6'? As I was asking this I looked at the actual motherboard and noticed that the slots are named on the board and the slot where I add the SATA4000, is marked 'Slot 6' on the board.

That's when the penny dropped - "Disable the ROM option" on Slot 6 is what my friend, Izak suggests immediately. Apparently there is a ROM on the card that the machine is stubbornly 'listening' to upon bootup ... hence the compulsion to RAID ... :) This setting instructs the machine to ignore whatever a ROM on a card in that slot, is trying to say/instruct.

After that BIOS change everything went smoothly and according to plan and 'iggy' is now proudly looking after media with lotsa SATA drives in its belly!

Very Short version:

Problem:

1. Have SATA4000 PCI-card installed on Intel Server Board SE7210TP1 in Slot 6
2. Want to add SATA drives for xtra capacity only - no RAID desired
3. Add additional SATA drive on HD-1 of the PCI-card
4. Machine insists on booting to point where one has to configure RAID and then hangs
5. Machine ignores attempts (F2) to access BIOS and runs to RAID-config point and hangs
6. BIOS is AMIBIOS Ver 3.10

How to fix problem:

1. Shut down machine
2. Remove SATA4000 PCI-card
3. Boot up again whilst pressing F2
4. In BIOS go to Advanced->PCI Configuration
5. Go to 'Slot 6 Option ROM'
6. Toggle 'Enabled' to 'Disabled'
7. Save BIOS settings
8. Shut down machine
9. Replace SATA4000 PCI-card in Slot 6
10. Connect SATA drive onto it
11. Reboot machine