BIOS does not detect my HDD's after putting them in a RAID

[Looneybomber]

Here's what's going on.

The Mobo is an ASUS M3A78 T and has a raid controller

I have two HDD's I put in a RAID0. Before putting them in a RAID, the sata ports auto detected both drives. After putting them in a RAID, which the controller screen says it's a functional raid, going into the BIOS shows no HDD's detected.

I do not have an OS and I can't get it installed since no HDDs are detected.

The ASUS disk has an XP and Vista raid driver built in that I can do something with, but I have no idea what because it wants me to create some boot disk and I don't even have an A: drive to try to create one.

I think my only options are1) Make it work somehow so I can try to install Win72) Install win 7 on a single drive, then convert to a RAID0 later? Is that even possible?

Thoughts?

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

Bump because I would also like the answer to his question. Also...why bother with RAID setups?

[szh]

These are just some thoughts here - I don't know the real answer to your question per se.

First and foremost, the most common two RAID options (for PC's with typical setups) have some properties that make them useful:

- RAID 0 gives you speed. Every other chunk of data (selectable between 2k to 64k for most RAID setups) is read from, or written to, the "other" disks in the RAID array of disks. This is usually a major speed enhancer, since physical drive read/write rates are slower than the bus rates. Thus, the bus runs at high-speeds and the RAID divvies up the reads and writes to multiple physical disks. In most PC configurations, 2 disks are sufficient to optimize the speed as good as possible.

- RAID 1 gives you reliability. Both drives are written in parallel, although reads are alternated. So, if one drive fails (hardware wise), then you simply pull it and use the other totally normally. Till you replace the broken and re-sync the old to the new. Again, two disks are usually the right number for a RAID 1 array, unless you want more reliability. In either RAID 0 or 1, if you plan to use more than two drives in an array, then selecting some other RAID option is usually better.

Thus, there are other RAID setups, usually requiring more drives, that provide additional speed and/or reliability or combinations. More than I can elaborate on here ... do a google search for info.

Note: With RAID 0, you get the capacity of the two drives added together (so, two 500MB drives in RAID 0 give your a capacity of 1TB) and with RAID 1, you get the capacity of the smaller drive in the array (so, two 500MB drives give you a capacity of 500MB).

BTW, it is best to operate with identical drives (sometimes even to the point of having the same drive firmware) in the RAID array!

Now, on to the original post. A few things come to mind:

1. Usually, you have to enable RAID functionality in the BIOS of the motherboard. After you do this, some other screen sequence pops up during the boot that allows you to use the RAID firmware to actually set up the array of drives. I.e., to configure RAID the array, select RAID type (0 or 1 or ...), format the array, etc., etc., etc.

In my Alienware MJ-12 laptop, the Promise Technology RAID chipset is enabled first in the BIOS, and then during boot, I get a prompt to press "Control-F", or some such sequence, to go into the RAID setup screen.

If you never see such a prompt, then your BIOS is not selecting RAID instead of SATA.

BTW, this is NOT what you are experiencing, I believe, since you do see the sequence during boot and the controller shows a proper RAID array.

2. The second thing that happens is that the drives are no longer visible as IDE or SATA drives - the RAID bios must show them to the OS as some other kind of special storage drive/device, otherwise, the OS would install/use the wrong driver. Typically, this means that you also have to have a driver for that RAID setup for the OS of choice.

This means that, during the install process, you will not see any standard drives unless you load a driver (this is an Advanced option during the drive select stage for the OS install).

In my laptop, the Promise Technology RAID chipset shows the drives as a special SCSI drive, and they provide a driver for it. My one problem was that the driver I have is old ... was intended for Windows XP, and they have not updated it for other OS's. Fortunately, this old driver has worked for me, both for Vista as well as Windows 7. So, I recently upgraded to Windows 7 Professional and was able to use the old driver (read it from a USB stick) during the OS install process. Whew.

Anyway, this is what I suspect is your problem. Use the ASUS software disks (from the floppies) and use them to select whatever XP or Vista driver you have for the RAID chipset on that motherboard. During the OS install process.

Hope this helps ...

Z

[szh]

Forgot to answer this one.

2) Install win 7 on a single drive, then convert to a RAID0 later? Is that even possible?

Nope.

Z

[szh]

Some more specific comments here.

I have two HDD's I put in a RAID0. Before putting them in a RAID, the sata ports auto detected both drives. After putting them in a RAID, which the controller screen says it's a functional raid, going into the BIOS shows no HDD's detected.

That is normal. The drives are now under control of the RAID chipset and will not show as SATA drives anymore.

For the reason that you do not want the SATA driver from the OS trashing your RAID array on the two actual disks ...

I do not have an OS and I can't get it installed since no HDDs are detected.

One of the options during OS install is to add a driver to see the RAID "drive". This is where you select the Asus RAID driver that you have - browse for it and add it in.

The ASUS disk has an XP and Vista raid driver built in that I can do something with, but I have no idea what because it wants me to create some boot disk and I don't even have an A: drive to try to create one.

You can put those files onto a USB stick if you do not have a floppy drive, and browse for that during the OS install (Windows 7 or Vista) to find the Vista driver - hopefully, your Vista driver for this RAID support will work under Windows 7 (this is probably a good chance).

Z

[Looneybomber]

I forgot to mention this if it matters at all. Once I established a RAID, my BIOS no longer detected the HDDs (which I see is fine) and also did not detect my DVD drive (sata).

You can put those files onto a USB stick if you do not have a floppy drive, and browse for that during the OS install (Windows 7 or Vista) to find the Vista driver - hopefully, your Vista driver for this RAID support will work under Windows 7 (this is probably a good chance).

So to confirm, I will find the driver on the ASUS dvd, drag it onto a thumb drive, and then how do I find my thumb drive when installing windows? The drives it lets me look through are A, C, D, E, and X (boot disk).

BTW, I undid my RAID, set my BIOS to defaults, still didn't work, so I had to pull the batter on the Mobo, short circuit it to clear the CMOS and then I was good. I will go back and re-establish my RAID0 tonight after my chem test and hopefully get to install my W7 tomorrow.

Thanks for the help thus far.

[Looneybomber]

Well I redid my RAID, the HDD's and DVD/CD drive are still "not detected" and consequently, when installing windows my driver that I need is for my DVD/DC drive. It also still doesn't see my HDD's, but I have to get my drivers for my optical drive first.

I can't boot or do anything with a flash drive in DOS or when trying to install Windows and I don't have an A: drive, so I'm kind'a stuck right now.

[szh]

Well I redid my RAID, the HDD's and DVD/CD drive are still "not detected" and consequently, when installing windows my driver that I need is for my DVD/DC drive. It also still doesn't see my HDD's, but I have to get my drivers for my optical drive first.

Hmmm ... the DVD drive should not get messed up at all when setting up the RAID in the bios. Something seems quite wrong. Can you take some pictures of what things look like during the boot (when setting up the RAID) and/or the installation process and post them up?

I can't boot or do anything with a flash drive in DOS or when trying to install Windows and I don't have an A: drive, so I'm kind'a stuck right now.

Well, the flash drive should be selectable as a source for the driver when installing Windows - I did this very recently for my Alienware laptop so that I could use the Promise Technology RAID drivers for it ...

How old is your motherboard?

Z

[Looneybomber]

Yeah, I will try to get pics and/or video of the boot process and the screen I see when installing Windows

My mobo was bought last year. It's an Asus M3A78-T

[szh]

My mobo was bought last year. It's an Asus M3A78-T

That is new enough to be fine for using a USB drive to get to installable drivers for the RAID ... hmmm ...

Z

[Looneybomber]

Give me another day or so and I'll hopefully be able to get some video of the boot process. I just got back from drill and have a lot of homework I need to do.

[Looneybomber]

Seems to be a pretty common problem.http://vip.asus.com/forum/view...en-us

I still have lots of homework to do tonight when I get home from work, but I've gotta get some pictures or vid taken of my bootup. I've got to get my computer going.

Last resort, I'll delete the RAID, reset my BIOS and CMOS, and start over.