Make my computer boot up automatically...

NYSpeed Automotive NYSpeed Off Topic
1

I have a server that will soon be in the basement, which I will access via VNC or by actually walking downstairs and using the keyboard / monitor / mouse that will accompany the computer.

The problem is, it’s an old computer, which needed a PCI SATA card in order to run a couple SATA drives (which also allows me to have even MORE drives in there when combined with the onboard IDE controller, anyway, I digress).

This SATA card wants to take over the booting. Nothing I can find in the BIOS will let me skip the SATA card’s BIOS, and no options seem to only allow me to boot from the IDE drive of my choice.

I recently thought maybe I could make it boot from a CD which would maybe run some kind of batch file to make it boot from the C: (IDE) drive. Is that an option? Even booting from CD tends to need human interaction (Press any key to boot from CD…).

The way I boot now, I have to wait for the SATA BIOS screen to pop up, hit ESC to get into a little menu of where I can boot from, and choose my IDE drive.

I’d like this system to auto-reboot if power is lost, or if I log in via VNC and make it reboot, I don’t want to have to be standing by to press ESC, etc.

Any ideas? Links?

FYI:
Motherboard = Asus A7V133
CPU = AMD Thunderbird 1200 MHz
RAM = 256mb PC100
SATA Controller = SIIG SATA-II 150
OS = Windows XP Pro SP2

Any other specs, just ask.

2

There is a boot order menu in the bios.

As far as turning on automagically, depends on the year of the boards. The A7V133 I don’t think has that feature but it might have a header for a WOL (Wake On Lan)…

3

yea i was gonna suggest a WOL

4

The boot order isn’t overpowering the onboard BIOS on the SATA card. I can make the BIOS from the SATA card come FIRST, but it still ends up wanting to boot from my SATA drive unless I manually intervene by pressing ESC.

As far as the powering up, I think it has an option to return to last state if power is interrupted - that’s much less of an issue at the moment.