Windows 7 has swapped my drive paths with my boot drive and storage drive.

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
MacMasterP

MacMasterP

Reputable
Nov 14, 2014
10
0
4,510
I have just finished a pc build with a SSD to be used as the boot/OS drive and a 2 HDD setup in raid 0 for storage.

First I started with the SSD only and installed win7, applied all the updates etc. At this point the system has rebooted at least half a dozen times with no issue.
Next I set up the 2 HDD in raid 0, initialized it with disk manager and everything is looking good. But as soon as I reboot the system, upon startup the system can't find a os. Using the windows install disc, I go into the recovery console and discover that the boot drive which was C:\ is now E:\ and the secondary drive which was E:\ is now C:\.
The os files on the boot drive seem to be all there. It's just in the wrong drive path. Using the recovery console I switched back the drives to their proper places, but then on startup I got the error 'bootmgr is missing' at this point I gave up, nuked the drives and started from scratch only to get thing again once I initialized the HDD and rebooted.
I am sure I have overlooked some stupid detail somewhere. Can anyone help me figure out where I went wrong?
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
MacMasterP

MacMasterP

Reputable
Nov 14, 2014
10
0
4,510
The machine is running perfectly. I needed to have the HDD drives disconnected when performing the windows install. I had one snafu. I had the bios set to AHCI when I did the install, I figured that since only the SSD was connected RAID mode should be deactivated. After everything was loaded up, I powered down, connected the HDDs, powered up and changed the bios to RAID, and booted up to a BSOD. Sure I let loose a couple cuss words, but I didn't panic. A quick search on google and 15 minutes later everything was running perfect. All I needed to do was a switch back to AHCI in bios and tweek the registry.

Here's the change you need to make while in windows under ahci.

run regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\iaStorV

Change the Start REG_DWORD from 3 to 0

Restart into bios, change to raid and it should not bsod when booting up.

Credit is given to Medo145 from the Overclockers.com forum for this fix. It worked A1 on the first go.
Big thanks to everyone who has taken the time to help me out with this. Thanks
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
X

Xibyth

Reputable
Mar 22, 2014
1,292
0
5,960
Thats strange, I regularly set up RAID configs in my performance machines. AHCI includes RAID instructions for basic setups. I start with only the SSD attached and install windows, after that I shut down, plug in the drives for the RAID setup, check my BIOS setting to insure it stayed on the SSD, boot up the PC and set up RAID in windows. This has never given me an issue. The RAID option in the BIOS is generally used if you are going to be using a RAID setup to boot from.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
MacMasterP

MacMasterP

Reputable
Nov 14, 2014
10
0
4,510
I am using a MSI Z97m gaming mobo and I have come to the realization that this mobo must have been designed from the ground up to be used in a raid config, because if you try to use it in a ahci setup it's just not happy. The SSD is slow, I get weird hicups. I got into a big conversation with a person from a window 7 forums (sevenforums.com) who was convinced that I would get better performance out of my ssd if I used a regular ahci setup. I was skeptical because I have been using hdds in raid 0 for years. This is my first time using a ssd. so I tried it. I nuked the drives and reinstalled win7 in a ahci setup with the disc drives independent. The ssd was much slower, and the rig just didn't seem to be happy. I have returned back to a raid setup and the ssd boots up 5 seconds faster in raid then in ahci even though the ssd is alone.
So the only thing that makes sense to me is that the mobo is made to run in raid to be able to get the most out of it.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom