Adding Raid AFTER installing OS?

[basalt51]

Hello,
I have a machine with windows 7x64 installed on an SSD in AHCI. MB is MSI FXA990-GD80 with AMD raid controller. I don't think there are two different controllers like some MBs.

I have decided to add a RAID 5 array (I am not interested in discussing the validity of RAID 5 or that I need to us a different form of backup). I'm using RAID 5 and booting to the SSD.

When I enable RAID, Windows bluescreens on startup. I tried running the windows startup repair utility and adding the AHCI driver from AMD which then detected the drive/windows installation and attempted to repair something, but it seems to have done nothing.

I then thought I read I could set the mode to RAID-UEFI and boot to the SSD and configure the raid in windows, but the only thing it boots to then is the UEFI shell. Do I need to configure a boot device there? No idea how.

Am I destined to reinstalling windows and all my software?

 

[HugoStiglitz]

Yes this behaviour is "working as intended"

changing the controller type (IDE, AHCI, RAID) will cause an "unmountable boot volume 0x000000ED)

you enabled and setup RAID 5 (your 3 or more drives setup in raid 5) prior to installing windows.

 

[aicom]

The msahci driver is not the driver you need for your RAID controller. You need to enable the AMD RAID controller driver (I don't know which one that is, but Google it). Then follow the same instructions you use to enable the msahci driver, but instead of going to the msahci registry key, go to the key of whatever the AMD RAID driver is.

 

[basalt51]

So I have the driver located here (AMD 9xx RAID Driver): http://www.msi.com/product/mb/990FXA-GD80.html#/?div=Driver&os=Win7%2032

Following these instructions (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976) I found the registry entry for the AMD driver "ahcix64s.sys"

start is already set to "0" as well as start for msahci. I checked in system32 that the correct driver is actually there.

With all that set, I should be able to restart, enable RAID in bios, and boot to the single SSD correct. When I enable raid, I can configure the RAID array, the SSD is detected as a single drive, but I still get the error at startup.

Thanks

 

[basalt51]

Anyone?

 

[basalt51]

looks like fresh install is my only option.

 

[icupn]

How to convert an existing Windows 7 installation from IDE to RAID

I have successfully converted a pre-existing Windows 7 IDE installation to a RAID 0 configuration. It was actually not that difficult. I read hundreds of posts on multiple forums and was never able to find a solution, so I figured it out myself. Below are the steps to accomplish the task. Note: If your current OS hard drive will be used in the RAID array, you must first clone your operating system partition to a hard drive that will not be used in the RAID array.

1. Prerequisites: You must have the hard drives you will be using in your RAID, a different hard drive with your current Windows 7 installation, and an external hard drive for an OS image (DVDs or Blu-Rays would work, but much more time consuming).

2. In the Windows start menu search box type "regedit" (without the quotes) then right click the entry and click "Run as Administrator" then enter your user credentials for the UAC prompt then click yes to open regedit.

3. In regedit navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci, in the right pane right click "start" then click "modify"

4. In the window that opens change the hexadecimal value to "0" and click OK. Close regedit click "File" at the top left and click "Exit".

5. Restart your computer. Enter the BIOS and change your SATA configuration to AHCI. Save settings and exit BIOS.

6. When the computer boots up, Windows 7 will install the AHCI drivers automatically. A prompt will tell you that your computer needs to restart.

7. Restart your computer. After booting up you should receive no hardware installation prompts. If you do, restart again.

8. Once there are no hardware installation prompts or restart notifications. Shut down your computer.

9. Most motherboards and RAID cards have an option to run specific SATA ports as IDE in RAID mode.

10. Verify/Connect your hard drive to a SATA RAID port that supports IDE (refer to your BIOS or motherboard manual to determine port, on my board it was SATA 5 & 6).

11. Power on your system, enter the BIOS, and change SATA operation to RAID, but change the mode to IDE (RAID is turned on, but will be running in IDE mode on the specified ports). Save BIOS settings and exit.

12. Boot into Windows 7 and you should be prompted to restart. Restart your computer.

13. You should now have a RAID controller that requires drivers. Install your RAID drivers. Restart computer.

14. Verify that your computer boots up and all hardware is installed and there are no prompts to restart. If asked to restart again, restart computer.

15. Check the device manager and verify that everything is installed properly and functioning. Shut down the computer.

16. Connect your OS hard drive to a different SATA port not assigned to the RAID. Connect the hard drives you want to use in the RAID to the proper SATA ports (I set up a RAID 0 with two identical 1 terabyte drives on SATA ports 5 & 6).

17. Power on computer and enter the BIOS. Go to SATA operation and change the mode from IDE to RAID (Should now have RAID enabled and mode set to RAID). Save changes and exit BIOS.

18. During boot up, press the key combination to enter the RAID configuration utility (mine was Ctrl-F). Create your RAID. Save changes and exit.

19. Boot up to Windows and, using Windows Disk Management (right click Computer and choose Manage, then click Disk Management), initialize the drive and partition/format if desired/required.

20. If the OS or RAID drives contain multiple partitions, go to the next step. If cloning drive follow this step and skip the next step.
Using your favorite image creating software (I use Acronis or Ghost), clone the OS drive to the RAID drive. This can be tricky if there are multiple partitions on the OS drive or the RAID drive. If the OS drive and RAID drive both utilize a single partition, cloning is the best option. After cloning drive, reboot computer.

21. Skip this step if you cloned the OS drive to the RAID drive.
Using your favorite image creating software (I use Acronis or Ghost), create an image of your Windows 7 partition and restore the image to the desired partition on your newly created RAID. Reboot computer.

22. Enter your system BIOS and change your hard drive boot priority to start with your RAID drive. Save changes and exit BIOS.

23. Boot in to Windows and verify that the RAID drive is now your C:\ drive. Using Windows Disk Management, re-partition/format original OS drive, or if no longer needed in system, shut down computer and disconnect original OS drive.

24. If all went well, you should now be running Windows 7 on your newly created RAID drive and your original OS drive is either blank and available as a backup/storage drive or no longer installed in the computer.