Cannot get into RAID setup utility or get Win7 on correct drive!

avianrand

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Apr 18, 2010
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Okay, something's wrong. I've done RAID before so this is not entirely new to me but this isn't working for some reason. New build on a GA-X58A-UD5. I set the BIOS "ICH SATA Control Mode" to "RAID(XHD)" per the manual. Saved the settings and restarted. Tried to hit CTRL+I when advised but nothing. I tried it many times in many places during startup. Still nothing. I have 2 SATA III drives jumpered to run SATA II on SATA 0/1 ports (Intel controller) and 4 SATA II drives on the other 4 SATA II Intel controller ports. Going to RAID 0 the first 2 and RAID 10 the other 4. The drives show up in the lists during POST including the green text list that shows drive sizes and in there it also says NON RAID drive for each one as it should so far. But again, when I hit CTRL+I I get nothing. Gigabyte is closed for the night and can't call them now or I would do that. So I'm kind of stuck. Any ideas?

Thanks.

A.

EDIT: Well just for kicks I cleared the CMOS. That did it. For some reason the other settings I'd made would not allow me to get into the RAID utility. I hadn't done much, changed the logo to off, and a couple of other little things that I would not have thought could affect that. Maybe a bug in the BIOS. Anyway, got the arrays set up.

EDIT 2: Well this stinks. I got in once but can't now. First time seemed to work. Like I said in "EDIT 1" above, I cleared the CMOS and set BIOS "ICH SATA Control Mode" to "RAID(XHD)" again, restarted and got into the RAID utility. Set up my arrays as needed. Went back to the BIOS and made the changes I wanted (XMP RAM so it would recognize my 1333 and not just use 1066; turned off the logo screen; turned off the FDD; turned off onboard sound, and that's it. very few changes in the BIOS). Restarted but did not try to CTRL+I this time as it seemed to be okay. Put in the Win7 64bit disc. Started installing and got to the RAID driver part. Tried to find a suitable file from the Intel RAID driver package I downloaded from the Gigabyte site. Windows didn't find anything that would work. So for kicks I decided not to try to load a driver. Created the partitions I wanted. The 2 drives at 640 GB in RAID 0 I set up as one partition just over 1T but Windows created this little 100MB partition as well so that was 2 partitions. Then I partitioned the 4 drives in RAID 10 as 1.4TB, 150GB and 150GB (3 partitions total for that array totaling just shy of 2TB. So far so good. Then I chose the "format" option on the same install screen. Weird. I clicked a partition, clicked format and then pretty much nothing happened. Did that for all the partitions. I'm used to XP and earlier spending time low level formatting drives at this point. These drives are brand new never used. 2 WD6402AAEX and 4 WD1001FALS. The 2 WD6402AAEX drives are jumpered to run at SATAII. Okay, so then I proceeded with the rest of Win7 installation. It actually seemed to go well. After fully installed I find out that Windows stuck itself on one of the 150GB partitions of the RAID 10 array! It never asked me where to put it but I figured it would go on the first one in the list since it didn't ask. XP always asked if I remember right. Okay, now everything's screwed up. I can't get back to square 1 to start over. I tried starting from the Windows 7 disc but when I "press any key to boot from CD/DVD" it just goes right into Windows EVERY time (tried MANY times). So I cleared the CMOS and still can't get to the RAID utility thinking I could break the array so I'd have to reinstall Windows. Ugh. Never had this much trouble before installing an OS! Is this the board? Is this Win7? What the heck is going on?!?!?!? Anyone else have these problems and know what to do??? Please help! :)
 

avianrand

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Well this turned out to be a freakin keyboard issue if you can believe that. I got a free USB keyboard from Newegg with some other things I ordered so I was using that to do this new build. It's USB only with no PS2 connector. Okay, so that should still work fine right? Maybe not. I don't know if that was the problem or the keyboard is no good. It was working fine for everything I did except the things noted above. It occurred to me this morning to try my usual keyboard on the new computer and that did the trick. I can get to CTRL+I just fine and whatever else I need to get into setup wise. As far as the issue of Windows not installing in the right place, that was my fault. When it came to the screen for me to set up partitions on the new drives I did all that but it ALSO asks where to install Windows. (Dear Microsoft, the "setup partitions" and the "where do you want windows to go" should be SEPARATE screens IMO!) Anyway, my fault. I didn't see the very obvious note at the top of that screen because I made an asumption I shouldn't have. No biggie. Reinstalled Windows where I want it and all's good.

I'm still confused about the formatting thing. When you create the partitions you can also click the format button but it's very quick. Doesn't make any sense. And I went to each drive/partition in Windows explorer and I can read and write to all of them. Disk Management indicates all is well also. Very weird. Not used to that.

Oh, and I never needed any RAID drivers. Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit didn't seem to care about that.
 

bilbat

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Oh, and I never needed any RAID drivers. Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit didn't seem to care about that.
Are you sure of this? You're running the OS 'manager' s'ware, and it's actually showing RAIDs operative? :ouch:
If you can confirm this, it's big news (at least, to me!); I'll wipe a partition and do a reinstall to confirm, if you're pretty sure... [:jaydeejohn:3]
 

avianrand

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After I was done I installed the Intel RAID manager tool. It shows the RAID arrays as expected. This did not surprise me as the tech support people I talked to at Gigabyte yesterday indicated that it would not ask me for drivers. The OS Disk Management (right click "computer", choose "Manage" and go to "Disk Management") says the drives/partitions are all healthy. AFAIK you cannot see the RAID arrays from the OS without the Intel RAID tools. Am I wrong?
 

bilbat

Splendid
Like I say - I gotta 'wipe one' and give the whole thing a try; I'm wondering if seven has made the southbridge RAID drivers 'native' to the OS, like they did with the AHCIs, 'sans' any announcement... My install procedure is so 'WROTE' that I don't know, after maybe fifty installs since seven first beta, what actually is 'seen' by the installer prior to the drivers being loaded. If the drivers are in, and the RAIDs configured, I think (but again, don't know) the manager 'thingie' is optional - it just 'keeps a real-time eye' on the volumes, and allows you to 'toggle' options, like write-back caching - never occurred to me to try to run without it...
 
My gigabyte X58 board has the USB keyborad option set at off (default.)



 

noway_44

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