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I have recently set up a new PC System, and still have issues configuring the harddisc raid.

Here is the detailed description of my problem:

The relevant components are

  • an ASUS P8Z68-V PRO, Sockel 1155, ATX, DDR3 (AMI Bios) Motherboard with Intel Chipset
  • 1x SATA600 SSD
  • and 2x SATA300 HDD,
  • a DVD Drive
  • and a BD Drive

For the installation of the OS (Windows 7 64 HomePremium) I set the DVD drive as primary boot device followed by the SATA 600 drive.

The SATA600 SSD Drive was chosen to be the system disc and all divers are installed there.

After the installation of Windows I installed in order:

  • Asus (Intel Chipset) Mainboard Drivers
  • Graphics Drivers
  • Audio Drivers

  • After installation of important drivers I rebooted the PC and entered the bios. SATA mode was initially AHCI which I set to RAID - then Save and Reset.

  • I entered the Raid setup Utility with ctrl-i to configure the Raid.

  • I build a raid-1 with both SATA300 HDDs using default values and rebootet the PC.

  • After rebooting I got a windows error message (white on black) telling me that windows would not start. The on sensible option was a repair mode, which I executed.

  • After unsuccessfully going through all points of the procedure the PC turned off again.

  • Next time on startup I did experiment with the boot sequence a bit: A new option - "windows bootmanager" - was now available which was set before the SSD. Exchanging those options priority did not help the least.

  • Only after setting the SATA mode back to AHCI did windows start up again normally. Both SATA300 HDDs do not show up in Windows at the moment.

Now I am wondering how I should go about making the HDDs available as a raid-1 without compromising my Windows installation on my SSD.

Thanks

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  • Drives A and B are reserved, by convention, for floppy disk drives and although there's technically no reason why you cannot assign them to hard disks I wouldn't be surprised if some systems get confused by this. Common practice is for hard disks (and SSDs) to start from drive C.
    – Linker3000
    Jul 25, 2011 at 21:09
  • Sorry for confusing things here. I did not mean Windows drive conventions by calling the drives A-E. I just wanted to give shorthands for them. I did not modify in any way the windows drive order. I will correct the question shortly. Jul 26, 2011 at 4:35
  • YOu could try using the windows boot disc to run FIXBOOT and FIXMBR Jul 26, 2011 at 4:49

1 Answer 1

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Sounds like a text book driver problem. During Vista, people who switched from SATA to AHCI would break their OS. The solution was to install the AHCI driver first, then switch. And that wasn't always the case.

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  • Hmm... so switching from AHCI to RAID is bad for the OS on the configured boot device. Since I cant counter this by installing more drivers somehow - how are the chances for a fixboot and fixmbr to make the OS bootable after switching to RAID? (Im fixing a friends PC here and will apply my findings next Sunday) Jul 29, 2011 at 22:56
  • Neither one will fix it. Boot into a recovery/install dvd and do repair. I've heard it isn't 100% guarenteed, has worked in the past.
    – surfasb
    Jul 29, 2011 at 23:29
  • I had the same problem on two occassions now, and I aggree to and accept this this answer. Switching Sata-Mode has negative effects on the existing Windows System. The most sure thing to remove those effects is to do a fresh install of windows. Aug 22, 2011 at 15:34

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