I have a working(for a number of years)
linux box. I had a few linux systems, one Suse, one Slack 12
. Since I ran out of disk on that I got a 500G SATA disk, and used about 200G to install another Slack 12 distro. There were some error messages
probably related to sata termination during boot, but for about 4 months, i.e. since I added the SATA disk, everything was working fine and I could boot into any system. Then I also added Ubuntu on another SATA partition,
but made sure grub was not written on mbr, so I could pick it up and manually put it in lilo. That did not work, although the Ubuntu partition can be used(it just cannot yet be booted from lilo), but for about 1 month
I could boot from lilo into any of the other 3 systems. Then yesterday
one time I could not get the lilo menu. Instead the system was hanging after bringing up a screen saying something like "adptec 2490AHA SCSI Bus
Press <CTRL><A> for SCSI select Utility.
F2 and F11 for setup and Boot params do NOT bring up any screens
just a text on the bion screen.
Yesterday I shut down the system and brought it up again and it booted into LILO. Today after some 10 or so tries, I still get the screen saying something like "adptec 2490AHA SCSI Bus
Press <CTRL><A> and it never gets to LILO.

Looks like a BIOS issue. Any suggestions?

Not BIOS issue but the controller for SATA drives most likely is failing. I'm assuming the drives are connected to the Adaptec 2490AHA device?

Yes, but I fear it's the MB. There is one SATA drive, the other two are IDE.
The fact that F2 or F11 do not bring up a setup screen probably means it's not the SATA controller

Is the adaptec built into the motherboard? If so, then yeah, that sucks. I always prefer anytype of Hardware RAID controllers or the like separate from the motherboard, it eliminates having to replace more components than necessary.

Sorry but I don't get that. If the controller goes you buy a new card. What difference does it make if the old controller was built-in or not? Price difference in mobos with/without raid controllers is minimal to non existent nowadaisy.