Unable to install Vista on RAID 0 with AM2 AMD 690G/SB600

[ragemonkey]

just purchased a Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H motherboard for socket AM2. I am trying to clean install Windows Vista on a RAID 0 array of 2 74GB WD Raptor drives. My problem is, when I boot from the Vista DVD and get to the point to where I can load the RAID driver... the setup program instals the "ATI ACHI Compatible RAID Controller" just fine but when it gets to the screen where you can specify which volume to instal Vista on... it detects the volume as "Unallocated Space" even if a partition already exists. Further, there is a warning at the bottom of the screen that says "Your Systems BIOS does not support booting to this device...". I cannot create/delete/format/or otherwise touch any volumes at this screen. All I can do is exit setup. I have tried the included RAID driver, drivers from other mobo manufacturers (asus, msi) and even the latest driver relase from AMD/ATI... none of them resolve this.

This same RAID array existed on my prior system, which ran a ASUS A8N-E Nforce4/939/X2 4800+ setup.

Some other stuff...

Windows XP will install fine.

Windows Vista will install on a single volume fine **if** I go into the BIOS and set the SATA controller to "Native IDE"

Cannot install on any volume (also tried a 300, and a 320GB SATA by themselves individually each set as JBOD) if the SATA controller is set to "RAID"

The exact warning provided by Vista is: "This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu."

When trying to create/delete/format/have kinky monkey sex with any volume Vista says: "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation".

This error occurs on any volume connected via SATA when SATA mode is set to RAID. Regardless of whether it is a single drive setup as JBOD or 2 disks in a RAID 0 aray.

Here are some KB articles I've found trying to figure this out. From what I've been seeing the ATI SB600 RAID controller isn't playing nice nice with Vista... even thought the entire board is supposedly "Vista Certified"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925481

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937251/en-us


I am stumped, gigabyte tech support is stumped... any help is greatly appreciated

 

[jeditim]

I am having exactly the same problem. I have a Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 that I compelted over the weekend. The specs are:
- Corsair 4Gb, 2 x 2Gb, of DDR2 800
- Gigabyte GeForce 8600GT
- Two Seagate 500Gb SATA Hard Drives
- LiteOn SATA DVD, LH-20A1L-06
- Intel e6600 CPU

Yesterday I tried to install an OEM version of Vista Ultimate and am getting stopped at the same exact area. When initiating the Vista install, at the "Where do you want to install Windows?" page, it shows the two drives correctly, but I get a warning on the bottom saying "This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure the the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu.

When I select Next, I get the warning "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation."

I have tried to locate drivers...change BIOS settings...read forums and articles but haqve been unable to get lucky. I don't want to run in IDE mode as I bought the SATA drives for this reason.

Has anyone been able to come up with any answers? Where can I get the proper drivers for the system to load windows properly ion AHCI?

Thanks for your help,
Tim

 

[Onus]

...saying it works fine on XP.
Since Vista is not ready for [enthusiast] use, I'd install XP and have done with it.
Even if you managed to install Vista, you'd likely have enough future problems to regret not sticking with XP.
If you insist on using Vista, however, check in BIOS for a setting other than "AHCI," possibly "RAID" (the default option being "Disabled").

 

[ragemonkey]

Well... the thing is... with my old setup of a 939 X2 4800+/nForce4/2GB ram... vista ran great for me for several months. I see no reason why it shouldn't on a newer platform, especially one that is supposedly "vista certified".

In any case, I've been back and forth with Gigabyte tech support, and so far... well... no progress.

 

[jeditim]

Ragingmonkey,
I just started to upload Vista Ultimate a couple of minutes ago...I changed a couple of settings in Bios in the Integrated Perioherals section:
- SATA RAID/AHCI Mode, set to AHCI from Disabled
- Onboard SATA/IDE Mode, set to AHCI from IDE
I also had read at a Microsoft Knowledge Base Articlethat having two SATA hard drives installed may have been the problem...so I disconnected the SATA on channel SATAII1 and left connected the main drive on SATAII0.

Once I saved the BIOS the computer rebooted and the BIOS indicated that it found the drive and it was installing the drivers. I then inserted my OEM version of Vista Ultiamte and it passed the screen that it previously stopped.

Of course I may be writting this too soon but I am going to be optimistic and say that Vista will now load onto my computer. 8)

 

[ragemonkey]

You are correct. If you set the SATA mode as "Native IDE" and let the southbridge treat a SATA drive like it would a ATA-100 drive then yes... it will work and it will install Vista. No higher SATA bandwidth and no NCQ on SATA-2 drives. Plus... it still could get flaky if you use more than one drive due to Vista's new drive enumeration scheme as described in a MS Kb article.

Plus, if at any time you actually enable the RAID controller Vista will greet you with a nasty blue screen. Something to the effect of UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_DEVICE. Fun stuff.

This is a workaround, and one that gigabyte keeps trying to tell me to use.
However... if you're trying to install Vista on say... a RAID 0 array of 2 74Gig WD Raptor drives... this won't cut it.

The difference is, I just picked up an ASUS M2N-E Nforce 570 Ultra Motherboard and with the above setup... installed Vista on that same RAID 0 array of 2 74GB Raptors... in about 10 minutes start to finish.

There is definately something wrong with the ATI SB600's SATA/RAID controller in terms of working with Vista.

 

[Onus]

.
.
.
There is definately something wrong with the ATI SB600's SATA/RAID controller in terms of working with Vista.

NO. There is definitely something wrong with Vista in terms of working with the [known good] ATI SB600's SATA/RAID controller.

Vista is simply not ready for the [enthusiast] market.

 

[f61]

I agree with jtt VISTA is broken. One HDD per install, please, we don't want unauthorized copies.

JMHO

f61

 

[jeditim]

Ragemonkey,
You may have missed what I wrote...I am not running in "Native IDE" mode...I switched two settings to AHCI. My splash screen when I start up has changed and it shows that it is loading SATA drivers.

I will confirm tonight that I am not running in IDE mode in the BIOS. However, last night I was able to load up VISTA. I then reconnected the second SATA Seagate 500Gb drive...at first I thought it wasn't being recognized and then I realized I needed to format the hard drive...it took about two and a half hours but now I have two 500Gb drives set up.
Tim

 

[f61]

I always thought that the bios was flashed first for raid, then the O/S drive is installed and booted. Then load up and go. When finished, shut-down power off and add the 2nd drive and the O/S will query for a drive partition on the 2nd drive on restart. Am I wrong here?

f61

 

[Crouching Camel]

I find this all very interesting because I just purchased the GA-MA69GM-S2H motherboard this weekend. Along with this I've got an AMD FX-62 am2 chip, 4gb 800mhz DDR2 ram, 2x 160gb sata HDD. I'm trying to install vista on a raid0 setup but of course it's not working. I've set up the raid0 in the raid boot up option, and then boot up to the vista dvd. Everything goes well until I hit the part where I'm supposed to find the spot to install vista. I load up the drivers off of my flash drive, it finds the sata "unallocated space" and proceeds to tell me that I can't install windows because of the "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation." note that pops up. Here I am at a stand still. I've tried so much and I can't create a partition through the vista set up because it just gives me an error.

I've even tried making the partition a different size in the boot up raid options. All useless I get the same responce. Maybe you guys have already explained my problem with a solution. Are you saying that I can plug one sata HDD in and install vista and then proceed to plug my other HDD in and connect them into a raid0? Ultimately I'm looking to get this set up on a raid 0 so using raid 1 and that isn't what I'm wanting. Will this work?

 

[z3n99]

Hello.

Did anyone ever find an answer from MS or Gigabyte on this issue?

I've got a brand new GA-MA69G-S3H with a pair of WD 500GB SATA II drives that I want to run in Raid 0

When you try to install vista, you get as far as the partition manager which shows the disk (after loading the driver) but I can't create any partitions on it.. it throws a 0x80300002 error..

I've tested all the hardware under linux and it's fine.

This is so annoying...

 

[z3n99]

Resolved.

Here is what I did..

1 - Update the BIOS to v4 using a floppy disk, a USB flash stick didn't work, as it complained about the bios ID being invalid?!...

2 - Use the following driver from the Gigabyte website for the controller

32bit - http://www.giga-byte.com/Support/Motherboard/Driver_DownloadFile.aspx?FileType=Driver&FileID=3228

64bit - http://www.giga-byte.com/Support/Motherboard/Driver_DownloadFile.aspx?FileType=Driver&FileID=3229

Now.. everything is working

 

[maldown]

Hi i have a similar problem. I had a Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H mobo with 2x WD 750GB HD's in a raid-1 mirror. I installed Vista ultimate and at first everything worked ok. The mirror established and Vista installed fine. After about 2 weeks seemingly at random the ATIWebPAM Raid Monitor (and the BIOS) would report 1 of the hd's in the mirror had gone critical, and would begin a rebuild. Over time things got worse and at each reboot one drive would go critical. In the end my supplier replaced the mobo with an identical one as it seemed one of the SATA ports had gone faulty. Now here's the weird part.... with the same HD's, same RAM, same processor, etc but new identical mobo, now Vista wont install on the raid-1 mirror whatever I do. I can select and install the Vista drivers from a USB stick part way through install but it comes up with the same message that other people have reported, ie "This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu." I have downloaded and updated the mobo BIOS to the latest version from Giga's www site and also checked I'm using their latest SB600 raid drivers. The new mobo is the same part no, the same revision and has the same bios, connected to the same processor, memory and hd's, etc but this time using the same install CD, Vista Ultimate will not talk to the Raid-1 mirror. If delete the mirror and revert back to 2x plain old 750GB drives with no Raid, Vista will install, albeit very slowly. Like most of you I've searched all the forums, including Microsoft support, Gigabyte support, etc, etc.
Any ideas anyone?

Currently (after spending 4 evenings this week trying all sorts of combinations of drives/configs to get Vista installed) I am now resorting back to testing a vanilla XP Pro installation on the same hardware with a Raid-1 config using the Gigabyte XP Raid drivers.

Other things I've tried include:
1) Booting from Win98 boot disk, running FDisk and deleting all partions so disks completely blank
2) Using FDisk to create 2x identical primary partitions (one on each disk)
3) Creating the Raid mirror, then disconnecting one drive and attempting to install Vista using the Raid drivers when 1 disk is critical
4) Installing Vista on plain non-raid drive, adding second drive and trying to get BIOS to convert this to Raid config and add second drive - this screwed up completely!!

 

[boogieslim]

I had the same board with two WD 250GB drives suffering from same problem, my workaround was to use another board manufacturer's driver (a 690G+SB600 one, of course), it worked with RAID0 in my case.
This was the board I borrowed the driver from : Magic-Pro MP-A2AM-HD+

 

[mimixyy]

i just had a 5 hour session trying to figure this out. the issue is that there isnt actualy drivers on the gigabyte cd for your raid configuration.

firstly, use the Graid instead of the other one.

then go to the gigabyte website and download the actual drivers for your mobo. extract the drivers. inside should be a folder called floppy32 or floppy 64. select one of the respective of your OS.

put it on a cd/loppy/flash drive.

run the vista installation from startup.

load the drivers from the media that u put it on.

this will now properly detect your drive.



please note, if you use the wrong raid controler on your motherboard (there is usualy two with gigabyte top on boards) then you will get the drives to show up in the list, but it will be as un alocated space.
if you are using the correct controler it wont show up in the list at all until you do the above.
any questions, send me an email at mimixyy@hotmail.com

right now i am not out of the woods yet, i am getting boot mgr errors uppon startup, this is also a known issue, so hopefully i can sort it out soon.

 

[ron_blair]

Well Guys - I have been using a Gigabyte MA790FX-DQ6 MB for about a year and have had no problems with raid 0 on the SB600.
WELL - I do now!
I have one of the very early retail vesions of Vista Ultimate which includes both the 32 and 64 bit versions (I get to pick only one).
At vaious times - I have switched back and forth fom one version to the other and installation of raid 0 on the SB600 using a pair of WD Raptor 150 mb drives was completely uneventful.
Last week, one of the Raptors crapped out so I pulled both and put in a pair of WD SATA II 250 dives (the 16 mb cache models) and Vista has not installed since. I am having the same poblem as the rest of you guys.
The only real significance diffeence between the 2 pairs of drives is that the Raptors are 10,000 rpm SATA I drives.
I think however someone else here had trouble on a pair of Raptor 74 mb drives which eliminates the idea that the problem might have something to do with SATA II.

I gave up and am running IDE (works fine) until I get the replacement Raptor back. Then I will try again.

Just a thought,

Ronnie Blair

 

[ron_blair]

Well the dive link povided by Z3N99 has fixed the isue - but wht I don't understand is why is the driver necessary now when up until last week the raid array showed up without need for a dirver.

My wife says there are a lot of things I don't undestand including her so I will accept this without further discussion and on blind faith.

Thank You vey much - Z3N99

Ronnie Blair

 

[pauldsr]

Hey all,
same problem here system is a gigabyte ma790fx ds5. exact same issue as everyone else, except im running two 1 terrabyte es2 drives (the bloody expensive ones with 170,000 hours 24/7. but i can get nothing to load in raid 0, set it to native ide no problem xp installs vista installs, i am using the gsata chip not the south bridge chip, have gone from version 3 to 6 with the bios, tried the raid drivers on both the origional disk as well as latest on motherboard site all to no avail, i am going to add something that no one else has mentioned here, gsata set to raid, raid built in bios, install vista ult disk. get to install raid drivers now at this point i use the browse button instead of the just seek the drivers with the floppy installed and my twin 1 terabytes are showing up down at bottom with the drives labeled xx), once i choose the raid driver off the floppy my 2 terrabyte c drive shows up but gsata is still looking at the single x x drive at the bottom and i notice that is where the vista drivers have loaded. (i simply hit the refresh key and browsed for drivers again and this is when you can see your new 2 trbyt c drive but the curious double x and sometimes a single x still is showing up down on the bottom of the choose drivers list. i have not tried to raid to the actual sb chip yet because i was going (or at least my plan was) to use the twin external gsata to create a mirror assm later. no matter what i do i get the same mssg all you guys are getting make sure drive is set to boot and that this is a read only drive, gigabytes tech support actually switched me out on techs and then claimed they were gonna send me the correct drivers email. THEN JUST BLEW ME OFF AND HUNG UP ON ME! what a bunch of jerks after reading everything here now i understand why, im disabled has taken me since may of last year to get enough of my system to finally fire it up. spent 24 hours straight on it trying to figure it out. But heres the kicker xp wont load in raid either it goes into a continual loop. like your trying to install from disk each time it restarts and does it automatically. I am so upset and both frustrated as gigabyte has been good to me in the past, and now, my whole purpose for researching and deciding on this board was for the raid.
system gigabyte ma790fx-ds5
AMD 6400+ 3.2 GIG processor
coolmax cuqb 1200 watt supply
2 x EAH 3870 X2 1GB (to set up quad cross fire)
Geil DDR 2 EVOONE 800 mhz memory system runs beautifully ide mode
same as everyone else cannot load anything at ALL in raid 0
will try z399 fix and update this post later
INSANELY FRUSTRATED AND VERY DISSAPPOINTED IN GIGABYTE ESPECIALLY BEING BLOWN OFF BY TECH SUPPORT.
(THATS WHAT I THINK OF GIGABYTE RITE NOW!!!)
souls (Paul) ps any new help would be so much appreciated ive had the motherboard too long now to return it to new egg the only other thing i havent tried is taking the bios to 7 because the drivers they have on there site are slighty diff than the drivers on the origional disk.
you know it really hurts when you live on a fixed income and it takes you close to a year to put together a system, you spend every extra nickel you have to do it and the motherboard manu tech support just hangs up the phone on you. ive been running raid setups since 2005 on my first soyo kt880 dragon platinum with no problems so i know its not me, if nothing else guys thanks for listening

 

[pauldsr]

Hey all,
got the problem solved and am now running 2 terrabyte of seagate es.2 drives the problem turned out to be seagate and not gigabyte, a firmware update took care of the problem and now both drives are raid 0 on the gsata chip. Hope this info helps out anyone else.

 

[pauldsr]

Well Guys - I have been using a Gigabyte MA790FX-DQ6 MB for about a year and have had no problems with raid 0 on the SB600.
WELL - I do now!
I have one of the very early retail vesions of Vista Ultimate which includes both the 32 and 64 bit versions (I get to pick only one).
At vaious times - I have switched back and forth fom one version to the other and installation of raid 0 on the SB600 using a pair of WD Raptor 150 mb drives was completely uneventful.
Last week, one of the Raptors crapped out so I pulled both and put in a pair of WD SATA II 250 dives (the 16 mb cache models) and Vista has not installed since. I am having the same poblem as the rest of you guys.
The only real significance diffeence between the 2 pairs of drives is that the Raptors are 10,000 rpm SATA I drives.
I think however someone else here had trouble on a pair of Raptor 74 mb drives which eliminates the idea that the problem might have something to do with SATA II.

I gave up and am running IDE (works fine) until I get the replacement Raptor back. Then I will try again.

Just a thought,

Ronnie Blair

Hey check for firmware updates on your seagate drives that turned out to be my problem and they have several listed with a power off lost info on power on issue.

 

[pauldsr]

I am having exactly the same problem. I have a Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 that I compelted over the weekend. The specs are:
- Corsair 4Gb, 2 x 2Gb, of DDR2 800
- Gigabyte GeForce 8600GT
- Two Seagate 500Gb SATA Hard Drives
- LiteOn SATA DVD, LH-20A1L-06
- Intel e6600 CPU

Yesterday I tried to install an OEM version of Vista Ultimate and am getting stopped at the same exact area. When initiating the Vista install, at the "Where do you want to install Windows?" page, it shows the two drives correctly, but I get a warning on the bottom saying "This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure the the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu.

When I select Next, I get the warning "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation."

I have tried to locate drivers...change BIOS settings...read forums and articles but haqve been unable to get lucky. I don't want to run in IDE mode as I bought the SATA drives for this reason.

Has anyone been able to come up with any answers? Where can I get the proper drivers for the system to load windows properly ion AHCI?

Thanks for your help,
Tim

I was having the exact same problem turned out to be a firmware update on my seagate drives they have an issue out on several models check with them and see if your drives fall under the issue they have a page you can input your serial numbers and it will tell you if they fall under the issue.
souls

 

[Jared40]

Acronis disk recovery just look it up and get it

 

[Jared40]

Acronis 2011 Windows 7 & vista 64 no problem Utube it