BIOS not recognising / displaying drives

[johnwm]

Hardware used:- M4A88T-V EVO motherboard, OCZ agiltiy SSD hard drives, window 7 home premium

Hey guys, i recently invested in a new PC - for my job i use high volumes of data so need a high end database setup for fast access to info - to do this i have invested in two SSD hard drives that i am hoping to run in a RAID array and these are completely dedicated to my database. So after alot of work i have my machine up and running, it has a 60GB SSD for running windows 7 64-bit home prem. on, 2x120GB SSDs that will run my database and a 1TB SATA HD for storing whatever else i have on. Now the part i am having real trouble with is configuring the RAID array, firstly in the BIOS main menu i dont see the 3 SSD drives:-

However the drives all show up in the windows disk management window. Back in the BIOS, when i enter the SATA config. menu, i find that ports 1-4 are grouped together (currently set to AHCI), and it is possible to switch them into a RAID array but this is no good b/c it means my 60GB boot drive wont operate correctly - i cant seem to find a way for switching the individual ports to RAID, mainly since the ports arent listed individually?

another thing that i am unsure about is the way the drives are listed in the boot menu - they show up listed as IDE's although in the SATA config menu they are listed as AHCI controlled - i am unsure but think this may be a glitch with the BIOS for this motherboard where it doesnt update changes properly.

Many thx anyone who takes a few mins to help a noob, i have literally pent 24 hours now goin around in circles

 

[Emerald]

Some food for thought:

by changing AHCI to RAID you should be activating the RAID controller and the RAID configuration utility which usually shows after the computer passes the BIOS.

in the RAID configuration Utility you should be able configure Drive0/Port1 (60GB) as a standalone and build a RAID0 or RAID1 using Drive2/Port3 and Drive3/Port4 (2x120GB).

then in the BIOS you will set the boot sequence to boot of the 60GB


Sorry never worked with this particular MOBO but these general steps have worked for me on Server and Workstation setups

 

[zerrith]

I would visit the OCZ website and look for troubleshooting information. From what I have heard, SSD's not being detected in BIOS is a common problem.

 

[zerrith]

Found something in your mobo manual in the SATA section:

When the SATA 1-4 is set to ACHI the drives can only be seen in the OS and during POST.

So, you might have to configure your data array directly in Windows. To do this:

1. Open Disk Management

2. Right click free space segment you want to include in the striped volume and click "New Striped Volume"

3. Select the disks you want to use in the array and specify the amount of space to use from each disk.

4. Assign a drive letter

5. Format with NTFS

6. View summary page and click finish.