Can't get new RAID setup to work with existing AHCI HDD

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8Spike8

Commendable
Jan 1, 2017
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I recently installed Windows 8.1 on a reformatted HDD and just came into possession of a pair of 500 GB WD Black HDDs so I thought I'd check out RAID0, changed my BIOS from AHCI to RAID and Legacy configured the drives, but then when I went to boot, Windows won't load up, just crashes/prompts me to troubleshoot. If I change the SATA configuration back to AHCI in the BIOS, it loads, but then I'm getting RAID right? What's going on? From what I've read I should be able to run a AHCI drive alongside RAIDed drives..
motherboard is GA-F2A78M-D3H revision 4.
 
Solution
CountMike
!. Yes, OS has to be working to install drivers.
2. Yes, back up whole system drive using let's say my favorite "Macrium Reflect free" so in case something goes wrong you can have your system back in less than 15 minutes. You can also do clean install and RAID drivers may load (depending on widows version) automatically.
3. it does speed things up but not by large margin. In my opinion it's not worth the haste and capacity loss. When you install games on secondary disk main files stay on system disk so speed difference is even smaller.
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CountMike

CountMike

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Oct 31, 2015
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You need RAID drivers for windows if you want to run even single disk in RAID controller, that's why it wouldn't boot.
You can backup your OS disk and install windows in RAID mode on one disk and form RAID for another 2.
If you are going to run windows one one disk, RAID 0 for other ones makes no sense, only Mirroring would. You'd be better off connecting both HDDs for more storage.
 
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8

8Spike8

Commendable
Jan 1, 2017
4
0
1,510
Thanks for the quick reply CountMike!
I've got a few follow-up questions:
1. My motherboard is supposed to have RAID drivers on its disk drive, but do I need to manually install them within Windows or something? (Boot in AHCI mode, access drivers on Motherboard, install, then restart in RAID mode?)

2. By backup my OS disk do you mean creating a backup system image? Are you saying to backup, then reformat my main drive in RAID mode (just not RAIDed) then reinstall system from external image onto the newly reformated drive? I thought an AHCI drive can be run in RAID mode though. Is there a way to run the drives as is? Are there problems with doing so? (Although I could just reinstall everything from scratch because I haven't installed any programs yet, I'm trying to use this as a learning experience so I'd like to know all these details.)

3. As for your last comment, I've read that RAID0 can significantly reduce initial load times in games. So I was planning on installing the OS on the regular HDD for security/stability and installing and running my games off the RAID0 drives (because all the save data are backed up to the steam cloud anyway). Is there something wrong with this thinking? Please advise.

I appreciate all the help on my first system build!
 
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CountMike

CountMike

Titan
Oct 31, 2015
33,848
3,177
147,990
!. Yes, OS has to be working to install drivers.
2. Yes, back up whole system drive using let's say my favorite "Macrium Reflect free" so in case something goes wrong you can have your system back in less than 15 minutes. You can also do clean install and RAID drivers may load (depending on widows version) automatically.
3. it does speed things up but not by large margin. In my opinion it's not worth the haste and capacity loss. When you install games on secondary disk main files stay on system disk so speed difference is even smaller.
 
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