How to Boot From a SATA Card

Connect a SATA device to a SATA card to boot from it.

A Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) card is a device that allows you to connect additional SATA hard drives or SATA CD/DVD drives to your computer. You can also use a SATA card to support SATA drives on motherboards that have no built-in SATA ports. If you have a SATA card installed on your computer and want to boot from it, you must first connect it to a SATA device.

Things You'll Need

• SATA hard disk or SATA CD/DVD drive
• SATA interface cable
• Bootable CD or DVD

Instructions

1. Unplug all power cables and use a Philips screwdriver to open the casing of your computer's CPU.

2. Connect one end of a SATA interface cable to a SATA port on the SATA card and attach the other end of the SATA interface cable to the SATA port on a SATA hard disk or a SATA CD/DVD drive. The SATA card can usually be found connected to a PCI slot on the motherboard.

3. Plug in the power cables and boot your computer. If you connected a SATA CD/DVD drive to the SATA card, insert a bootable CD or DVD into it and restart your computer.

4. Press the "F12" key ("F10" key on some computers) during computer start-up and use the arrow keys to select the boot option labeled "Hard Disk." Select the option labeled "Bootable Add-in Cards" on the following screen and press the "Enter" key to boot from the device connected to the SATA card.

References

• Seagate: SATA /150 PCI Card: Installation Guide
• Pen Drive Linux: USB "Boot Menu" Phoenix Award BIOS

Resources

• Serail ATA