Need help with SSD RAID 0 and Windows 7 install

[Herdo]

My buddy and I have been trying to figure this out for a couple hours now with no luck.

He bought a new system and we set everything up just fine. We took his 2 120GB SSD's and created a RAID 0 array. After that we tried to install Windows 7. We put the disk in and went through the setup. We got to the point where it asks what drive we would like install it on. Nothing showed up.

I did a bit of searching and found that we may need the RAID drivers to install Windows onto the array. After getting back from the store with a USB flash drive I downloaded and copied the drivers to the USB drive. We plugged it into my friends computer and we tried the Windows 7 install again. Again no drives showed up. This time we clicked "Load Drivers" and we can see the USB drive and access it, but no matter what we try, we can't get the drivers to load.

What are we doing wrong? Please help!


Oh one more thing, I am using the drivers here http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=M4A89GTD%20PRO/USB3&p=1&s=24&os=30&hashedid=eCWbkolMf0DOW0IV under Utilities, the RAID drivers.

 

[Herdo]

Update: I got the drivers to load, and the RAID 0 array appeared. It wasn't partitioned so I clicked "New" and allocated all of it. Now when we click "Next" it gives the error, "System was unable to create a new partition or locate an existing partition, see the setup log files for more information".

 

[Dereck47]

I apologize if this is a stupid question but did you unzip the file you downloaded before you copied it to your USB?

Also, the files you need are nested pretty deep. After you unzip they are under AMD/Driver/Disk/RAID/Win7.

If you have the 64 bit version of Windows 7 you need to copy the 3 files from the x64 folder to your USB drive.
If you have the 32 bit version of Windows 7 you need to copy the 3 files from the x86 folder to your USB drive.

EDIT: Disregard post, I see you got the drivers to load.

 

[Herdo]

We got it to work! I have no idea how, I just unplugged the USB flash drive after i uploaded the driver and it worked. Thanks Dereck47 for the post!

 

[palladin9479]

We got it to work! I have no idea how, I just unplugged the USB flash drive after i uploaded the driver and it worked. Thanks Dereck47 for the post!

Ahh yes you left the USB disk plugged in after the driver load, that will cause some problems.

Windows installer will attempt to place the boot loader on the first mass storage device available, in your case it's the USB disk. So while Windows 7 would install on the RAID SSD array, it would want to place it's boot loader on the USB stick and thus you get an error.

After you load the drivers you should always remove the stick and click the "refresh / rescan" button to reindex the available disks. Its one of those "undocumented features" they forget to tell you about.

 

[Herdo]

Yep, that was the problem. I finally got it to install windows to the RAID array, but then when it tried to restart to finish the install it just kept rebooting itself. I checked the boot priority and it had set itself to the USB flash drive. I took the flash drive out and set to boot the RAID array on startup, and it worked!

 

[palladin9479]

Yep, that was the problem. I finally got it to install windows to the RAID array, but then when it tried to restart to finish the install it just kept rebooting itself. I checked the boot priority and it had set itself to the USB flash drive. I took the flash drive out and set to boot the RAID array on startup, and it worked!

Yeah they REALLY need to make a note about that in the install process. I made the exact same mistake when I was installing on my own RAID awhile back.