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Im trying to get a raid0 setup going. I have a 750 gb hdd with the OS on it and two 80gb HDD. For right now, I just want to raid0 on the two 80Gb hdd.

When I enable raid in my Bios, Win7 has a BSOD during boot. As far as I understand I need to install raid drivers. However how can I do this?

The win7 DVD doesnt seem to have a driver install option.

Any suggestions? Thanks

EDIT: I saw that there was as seperate setting for the 4th and 5th sata ports. So I pluged in my OS drive into there and left it on IDE. Still didnt work though, am I miss understanding that idealogy?

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  • What mode was the RAID adapter in when you installed windows?
    – RCIX
    Dec 12, 2009 at 0:19
  • pertaining to your letest edit - if the 2nd set of ports is on a different controller, then it has a different driver - thus your problem.
    – MDMarra
    Dec 12, 2009 at 4:07
  • RAID 0 is pointless and no faster than JBOD or RAID1, and often slower for most uses. The only use case where it might have some use is when streaming huge amounts of data, such as video editing or data mining. But since you're doing it on tiny disks, I don't suppose that's your use.
    – niXar
    Dec 12, 2009 at 15:18

6 Answers 6

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I would bet that in the process of trying to enable RAID, you're switching your SATA adapter from "compatible" mode (where it operates similarly to an IDE controller) to AHCI mode. Your adapter has to be in AHCI/RAID mode to enable RAID on anything connected to it. When you switch this, it appears as a completely different device to Windows, thus Windows basically says, "Hey! Where did all my data go!?" because it doesn't know about this device. The only fix really is to reinstall Windows.

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    But im just confused because, raid is not enabled on the drive that is holding the OS, so it shouldnt be looking for the data. Right? Dec 12, 2009 at 0:13
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    But i bet all of your drives are on the same adapter right? So you enable the ACHI mode on the adapter, and it causes it to do that for all of the drives including the OS drive.
    – RCIX
    Dec 12, 2009 at 0:18
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OK, the answers here are not entirely correct.

I was able to get my working without reinstalling the OS.

1) Sometimes the mobo's raid controller has two extra sata ports that are not part of the RAID controller, so move your OS drive there. 2) Enable the RAID controller, and this is where I went wrong, DONT CONFIGURE THE RAID JUST YET. 3) Let Windows Boot up, it will install the drivers for the raid controller. If not you can just get the drivers from the MOBO's website. 4) Restart and configure your raid :) 5) You will have to format your drives when you turn it back on, since they have to system type

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You can't create a RAID 0 on a volume that already has Windows installed on it. You need to create the RAID first, then install Windows.

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  • I am not raiding the actual windows drive, does that still mean it is impossible? Dec 11, 2009 at 23:44
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The only RAID you can really enable after Windows is installed is software RAID.

Hardware RAID, especially the ones built in to (consumer 1) motherboards typically uses a different hardware driver than using no RAID so Windows will no longer be able to see the hard drive.

You really need to install Windows after configuring RAID, however, you can usually change the level and settings after it is installed as a good RAID card simply shows itself as a hard drive to Windows and the settings, RAID, backup and everything else is handled by the card - invisible to Windows.

1 Guessing consumer motherboard as you are saying Windows 7 and not Windows Server.

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    Changing the level on a hardware RAID card really depends on the card. You can't go from 10 to 5 or 5 to 10 on most cards. You can't go from 0 to 1, or 1 to 0 either usually. You can grow RAIDs on most cards, but changing the level on the fly is usually very tough.
    – MDMarra
    Dec 12, 2009 at 0:29
  • +1 agreed - I just wanted to make the point that once Windows knows you want to use RAID, it doesn't matter what you set in Hardware, it will keep working as Windows will see it as the same hard drive... I agree that it is awkward to switch. Dec 12, 2009 at 6:55
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The problem you're having is that your Windows was installed without RAID drivers and now it needs those to boot properly with RAID/AHCI enabled in your BIOS. The recommended solution is generally to fully reinstall Windows and injecting the needed drivers during the initial setup loading by hitting F6. All vendors support only that solution.

But luckily, there are ways to enable hardware RAID/AHCI without having to reinstall Windows! The steps to follow depend on your specific system. They certainly are not meant for the faint of heart... :)

If you get the option to configure some SATA ports as RAID/AHCI and leave others as IDE, you should try the solution proposed by thegreyspot.

If you're not lucky to have that double mode option -- like I was not -- or that solution did not work, you'll need to perform some extra work to get it done. I recently bought a motherboard with an AMD SB850 RAID controller and had to research a lot to understand the basis of the process and tweak my own case. So, here follows the step-by-step guides I found, including the one I created myself:

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HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\iaStorV change value from 3 to 0 and reboot.

Reinstall intel drivers for RAID and will be ok!

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