2 Bootable PCI Controller Cards?

This is my first post here, so please excuse any errors..

As I inch my way to building my own machine, I have been able to pick up some inexpensive used parts along the way (ti4200, LSI u160 SCSI card, 36g 10K Cheetah drive, Promise Ultra 66....). I tested all of them in my old Dell Dimension - they work fine.

However, the Promise card and the LSI card don't appear to be both bootable if I have them in their PCI sots at the same time (they initialize fine alone). I get an error in setup:

Expansion ROM not initialized-PCI Mass Storage Controller, Bus 00, Device 10, Function 00

Then a second message identical to the first but the Function is "01".

It looks to be the SCSI card that does not initialize. The PRomise card does. Its not a big deal as the SCSI card will always be used for secondary storage in the new machine but can you have 2 bootable cards run at one time? If so, how? If not, can I somehow prevent the SCSI card from trying to initialize so I don't get the error in startup? If I continue with the boot the SCSI card works fine. And finally, why do I get 2 error messages but with different Function numbers?

I do have my boot drive running off the Promise card and both cards have the latest BIOS on them.

Although this is a Win 98 machine, will the same information apply to XP?

are they both using teh same IRQ???
i do for a fact that add on controllers cards dont like more than one in the system and can cuase all kinds of headackes.... so ti could be the hardware will not work with each other

Thanks - No, I checked the IRQ's - the LSI is using #9 and the Promise is using #11. Both show as having no conflicts and are working properly. And they do work once the machine has started though the SCSI ROM never initializes.

Any way to prevent the SCSI card from trying to initialize?

As far as the computer is concerned, they are both SCSI.

You're right. The cards both show up as SCSI cards. I don't see a way to disable the BIOS loading on the "real" SCSI card and prevent the startup error message. More of a hassle than anything else since everything seems to work OK once the machine is booted.

Two things. First, remove the Promise card, make sure to add a jumper to the SCSI ID of the Cheetah( to make sure it's ID is not 0) and boot to SCSI BIOS and disable bootability(may not be necessary on some cards). Second, reinstall the Promise card and make sure that it is in a slot that initializes before the LSI, closer to the AGP slot. That should take care of the error.

Thanks - I will give it a try tonight. I believe you are right that the Cheetah is set to an ID of 0. I did not know, but it makes sense, that the PCI slots would initialize in order. I'll post back with the results.

Xaotic - thanks. You definitiely got me pointed in the right direction. One minor twist - After disabling the bootability in the SCSI card, I had to place it closer to the AGP slot than the Promise card. If it was after the Promise card, I would still get the same error. Being first, it read the SCSI card and moved on and all went as it should.

Thanks again for the help.

You're welcome. Good to know about the card order, most of the systems I work on have multiple SCSI/RAID adapters so I took a shot. It is strange that the SCSI card has to be fully initialized and clear BIOS before the Promise card.

Yeah, the order seemed counterintuitive but, as I watched the startup, the SCSI startup would flash and say no devices found and then move quickly to the Promise card. Best I can figure is that once any bootable card is fully initialized, the next bootable capable card will get an error since it doesn't seem to proceed far enough to register that the boot capability has been turned off. But that's only a guess. Important thing now is I don't have to hassle the errors at startup.