Asus Raid and Vista...

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TheBluePill

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Aug 17, 2005
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Hey folks,

I have an Asus P5N73-AM motherboard and I wanted to setup a pair of Hard Drives on SATA 3 & 4 as a Raid 1 Mirror for some file backup. My Primary hard drive is on SATA 1 and CDRW on SATA 2..

Im running into a problem though.. If I don’t enable the raid functions in the bios, Vista 64 will see my Primary drive and both new Drives Separate, which is natural.. If I enable the Raid Functionality Mode in the Bios, I start to have some major issues.
If I enter the raid setup, I can select my two new drives as a Raid 1 Array…
When I reboot, Vista blue screens on startup as if there is no readable system files (like when you have the wrong partition information in an XP boot.ini)..

Being used to XP, I figured the raid array is becoming the primary controller and the remaining SATA ports become secondary.. keeping Vista from booting up.. by changing the disk/rdisk values for the MBR..

But.. With Vista.. there is no Boot.ini.. Just the BCD.. Which now only lets you select Drive’s, but not disk/rdisk values as far as i can tell..

I know its hard to explain here.. But I guess what im asking is this.. anyone know any way to allow vista to see my primary drive first or make the array’s Raid a secondary controller?


Here is my MB

Asus P5N73-AM

http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=614&l4=0&model=2336&modelmenu=2
 
The problem is that when you switch to raid mode you need a different driver, and that driver isnt loaded on your existing OS install, so you get a stop 07b bluescreen.
 
extide said:
The problem is that when you switch to raid mode you need a different driver, and that driver isnt loaded on your existing OS install, so you get a stop 07b bluescreen.
Click to expand...

Ah..

Would that be part of the Forceware pack?
 
Ok.. Tried adding the newest Forceware drivers.. Didnt work out..

I also manually added the Specific Raid Drivers through "Add Legacy Hardware", still a no go.
Even with no array, simply putting the onboard controller in Raid mode gives me the 07b BSD.

So i guess im probably stuck with Re-installing the OS or just buying an external Raid Controller.. Joy Joy..
 
just reinstall your OS, it should only take a couple hours to install everything just make sure you back up your porn
 
TheBluePill said:
Ok.. Tried adding the newest Forceware drivers.. Didnt work out..

I also manually added the Specific Raid Drivers through "Add Legacy Hardware", still a no go.
Even with no array, simply putting the onboard controller in Raid mode gives me the 07b BSD.

So i guess im probably stuck with Re-installing the OS or just buying an external Raid Controller.. Joy Joy..
Click to expand...
Just reinstall.

You can't change between IDE Emulation and AHCI/RAID mode after windows is installed. The OS boot is tied very closely to the hard disk controller it needs to boot from.
 
You actually can change.. There are some guides on the net but it is not for the faint of heart.

IF you have a PCI/PCI-E SATA card you can use temporarily then you can do this and it's not too hard:

(To start remove the new drives so only your existing HD is attached to the system)

-Install SATA CARD, Boot from Onboard(NOT the card!)
-Install drivers for new SATA card when prompted
-Shut down and Move Boot disk to SATA card
-Go into BIOS and change ONBOARD to RAID mode
-Change boot order (temporarily) so that it boots from the SATA card (which currently has the driver loaded in your OS install)
-Boot the machine it should boot to windows fine and prompt to install the RAID driver.
-Install the RAID driver and then shut down the machine
-Move boot drive back to onboard raid, and remove the SATA card
-Fire up the system and then go into the RAID bios and EITHER put your boot drive into a single drive JBOD array or something, OR mark it as a NON-RAID disk if the option is present.
-Make sure your boot order is set to boot from onboard raid now.
-Now you should be able to boot to windows from the onboard raid
-If all went well you should now be able to attach the two new drives for the raid1 mirror, and set that up.

If you think through those steps and see what's happening we are always allowing the OS to have a driver for THE boot disk controller. That is the ONLY driver that is absolutely required to boot windows. If you have the driver for the disk controller your boot drive is attached to you can always boot.

Good luck.
 
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