Help with array plz!

[Ruiner]

See sig for setup...
For some reason I can't boot off my array. It hangs at DMI verification. In fact, if the array is even present, it keeps me from booting from a CD (system hangs at DMI).

If I delete the array in the fasttrack bios, or unplug one or both of the HD's, the CD will boot fine.
I can boot from a floppy, even with the array present, and dig around the array in dos (it's fat32). The data seems intact.

The array is functional in the Fasttrak bios.
Yes, the bios was set to boot from 'scsi' when I was trying to boot to it.
I'm using win2k sp2.

Did I get a virus? Has one of the drives gone bad? Why would a failed drive keep me from booting off a CD?

Help!!!

[Jon]

What controller is your CDROM running off of and what do you have it set as (master, slave, etc.)?

Those hacked Promise cards are known to go bad after time too, seen it a few times and TweakHardware.com (www.tweakhardware.com) made mention of it some time ago.

Have you tried resetting your CMOS? Hanging at the DMI Pool verification sometimes is the result of a BIOS conflict.

[Ruiner]

I think I may have solved the problem.
I have a 3rd hard drive (master on IDE2) that I use to ghost to.
I had been keeping its IDE connected and its power cable off (to reduce the risk of virus infiltration).
My burner was the slave on that IDE channel (my other CD rom was master on IDE1).
I reconnected the HD with the plans of restoring from my ghost file and the thing booted right up.

My computer had been acting buggy as **** for a month or so....I thought it was a stability problem with my overclocked processor, but it remained after I turned the fsb down to 66 to troubleshoot.
I cleared the CMOS, and that's when I started having the problem I described in my first post.

If I want to keep that HD disconnected when not in use, I may have to make the burner the master, and keep the HD off the IDE chain.

Does this sound reasonable?

[Jon]

Doesn't sound reasonable but not because it won't work. I just say that because you shouldn't have a problem running things that way when you obviously do. Is annoying when common devices that should play nice together, don't.

Had alot of the same problems with an old TYan board. Would only accept my drives connected in one manner or it would hang at DMI Pool verification as well. That board was about shot as it is but still could never figure out the problem it had with drives...