How to install Raid Drivers w/o a floppy drive

I'm not quite getting what the issue is.

When you install Windows 7, you can use F6 during the install to load drivers from any type of drive, either a floppy, a USB flash drive, or an optical drive.

What is the "RAID disk utility creator"? Is it a piece of software that creates the disk with the drivers on it? If so, I'd guess that you could give it the drive letter of a USB flash drive and it would write to it perfectly well. Although the message it displays may refer to a floppy drive, I'm guessing that's just an anachronism and it can in fact write to any kind of drive.

  thanks for the quick reply bro,

i've already installed windows 7 on my rig, but i'd like to use the raid features for data other than the OS...erm...do i need a clean install to install the driver?

i'm trying out the USB method now...

after i get the drivers loaded, how do i proceed?

OK, so you're saying that you're NOT using RAID right now, but you want to add new disks configured as a RAID array to your system?

This isn't something I've tried, but I believe that when you reboot your system after configuring the RAID array you'll find that Windows configures the drivers automatically. I think a manual load of the drivers would only be necessary for an older OS such as XP which was released before the ICH9 chipset was available.

The only issue might be if your ICH9 controller is currently running in "IDE Emulation" mode instead of "AHCI" mode. In that case enabling RAID might render the system unbootable, since it's based on the AHCI protocol. You can solve that problem by doing the following BEFORE you set up your RAID array:

1) Run the Registry Editor (regedit.exe)
2) Navigate to Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci
3) Set the "Start" value to 0 (zero)
4) Navigate to Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Pciide
5) Set the "Start" value to 0 (zero)
6) Shut down
7) Start up again, but before Windows boots go into the BIOS configuration screens and change the disk mode to "AHCI". Save the new BIOS configuration and restart so that Windows boots.

When Windows starts, it will detect the change, load the AHCI drivers, and do one more reboot to start up with them.

oh yeah,thanks for that, i tried enabling the AHCI mode just this morning, but i turned it back to IDE as i read in some forum that it stresses the NB...correct me if i'm wrong   btw will i get any performance benifits from AHCI enabled?

I'm using my rigg for gaming purposes as well as downloading content, so theres a lot of file swapping from drive to drive...any new drives i'll add will be running in RAID.

I have a 250GB seagate for my OS and music, and the other 250GB hitachi is for my prject work..and i'm sure you understand they are not runnign in raid.

I have two 500GB WD greens running on the marvell controlled sata ports AKA speeding HDD

Devlopment - drivers successfully written to USB drive - what next -how to install  ???

With that motherboard, you still can run RAID on the ICH9R chipset, even if you already have your other drives running. Just in case the Marvell controller flake out.

I don"t like either JMicron or Marvell controllers. I completely trust Intels. Isn't the Marvell controller for that mobo for SATA III? That's okay, SATA II drives will still work on a SATA III port, but you will not get any benefit in speed. SATA III is overrated for hard disk drives (HDD), it's really meant for Solid State Drives (SSD) coming out.

Anyway, if you already have the OS and additional drive sete up, you can add more drives. If you use RAID on the Marvell controller, the mobo CD/DVD should have the drivers on it. Check your manual.

You can set up RAID in the BIOS for which ever controller you use, and it SHOULD have no effect on the current setup. I said should. If you use Marvell, you would only set up that controller in BIOS, and then enter the RAID set up during post. Something like <Ctrl>+<I> during post enter Intels RAID setup, so Marvell should be close. Check your manual.

If you wanted to use the Intel controllers, you still would set the SATA to RAID in BIOS, and enter RAID setup during post. You can set up a single drive in RAID, and it'll still be a single drive in Windows. Should be no changes. It'll use ACHI as default. You would add the 2 new drives, and set them up as RAID in the same set up. Upon Windows boot, you will need to allocate/partition/format the new drive array via Disk Management.

If you need more detailed info, let me know.

hey there! erm, ok, thas a lot of quick info  

so your saying that i wont loose my data on my drives. I would want to use intels raid controller as i'm finding little comfort using the speeding hdd's - they are software controlled...but at then again i noticed in my bios that i can set the raid setup to 0 or 1 for the speedsters...any more reason not to loose interest in the speeding hdd ports?