S3420GPLX + AXX4SASMOD boot/drive order

[idata]

I use this combination for my server, and was wondering if there was a way to set priority of the boot between drives attached via the SAS module and the onboard sata drives.

Currently i have 9 hard drives (6 on board + 3 on sas) individually with no raid and my OS is attached via the SAS module.

I find that by taking drives in/out of the hot swap bays (supermicro 743TQ chassis) it will change the boot order in the BIOS and windows 7 pro may not boot until i reconfigure it in bios. this is troublesome as i do a lot of remote work and have staff switch drives for me at times. At no point does the OS drive ever move (connected off the hot swap bays via sata cable directly) yet the boot priority for this changes all the time. this is also reflected once windows boots up as the OS drive will be identified as a different disk number in windows based on the number of drives that are connected.

I want to move this OS drive onto SATA port 0 on the mobo and have it boot off sata 0 at all times as the other data drives are less important.

i've tried this and if i connect it via SATA0 on the motherboard, windows will detect it as Disk3 instead of Disk0. Somehow the drives on the SAS module take priority over the onboard. the drives on the SAS are detected as disk0, disk1 and disk2 in windows. i want it so that those will be disk6 disk7 and disk8 (following on from the onboard sata designations)

Is there a way to do this?

Thanks

[Edward_Z_Intel]

How about installing Windows first without the SAS drives connected?

[idata]

that's what i do already, but still doesnt work

[Edward_Z_Intel]

After connecting SAS drives and select SATA drive 0 as boot drive in BIOS, can you boot to Windows?

[idata]

yes i can, but if i move around the other hard drives and turn off/restart the system the boot order within the bios would change and windows wont boot until i change the boot order again. this is despite me not moving the OS drive at all

[Edward_Z_Intel]

Well currently it's the designed behavior - I heard about changing the behavior in the future, but I'm not sure when it can be implemented.

As a workaround, you may try SOL (Serial Over Lan) so that you can change the boot order in BIOS remotely. You can use SOL with http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=17690 DPCCLI.

For more information about SOL, check the http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sb/CS-031837.htm SOL white paper.