Question How do I enable and set up RAID with this mobo?

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Turbonium

Turbonium

Platinum Member
Mar 15, 2003
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igor_kavinski said:
https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/l9il0g

Try different two ports (2 and 3). And remove the M.2. Then see if it detects the SATA drives.
Click to expand...

I tried contacting that user but his account on Reddit is suspended for some reason.

Also: noted, but I think I will try contacting Asus support first, because fiddling with the internals is a hassle, physically. I mean, I'll obviously do it if it solves the problem, but it very well may not.

Oh yeah, and just a reminder that the BIOS sees the drives just fine. I think you know this already, though.
 
Turbonium

Turbonium

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Mar 15, 2003
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My one friend is saying that the motherboard is in AHCI mode, not RAID mode, or something. Does this sound like it's correct thinking? I mean, the drives are seen in PCH options in BIOS, and according to that Reddit post you shared (which I looked at already prior), PCH is the correct mode for RAID to be functioning.

I mean, I looked for a way to toggle AHCI on/off many times anyway, but I don't see anything of the sort in BIOS.
 
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Turbonium

Turbonium

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Mar 15, 2003
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Tech Junky said:
I think it's a limitation of the board personally. Either that or just a crappy UEFI image they released with that feature not working. Try a different UEFI version. Kill the secure boot while you're at it as it causes more issues to troubleshoot.
Click to expand...

What is secure boot?
 
T

Tech Junky

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Jan 27, 2022
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Turbonium said:
What is secure boot?
Click to expand...
It's the silly thing that Windows requires for TPM on W11.

Anyway.... so, you updated the ME / UEFI to the latest versions and Windows is showing missing drivers for several items. I'm starting to think this is more of an OS issue than the board / RST.

For my systems I can usually grab a bunch of drivers and then dump them into a single folder for install. W/MSFT is crappy at providing drivers through WU though so, having them on hand makes life easier. Though I've been playing around with Driver Booster from IOBit and it seems to do a decent job since I've killed QU by DNS blocking completely due to them pushing junk updates that break more stuff than they fix.

So, at this point I would dig up some drivers and see if W will clear those unknown devices from the list and populate the drives in disk manager.
 
Turbonium

Turbonium

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What is Key Management (in Secure Boot options)? Will clearing them help?

options/types:
PK
KEK
DB
DBX

Also, Secure Boot options are "Standard" and "Custom" iirc. I set it to Custom to gain access to the above. I also set the UEFI type to Windows UEFI, if it matters.
 
Turbonium

Turbonium

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Mar 15, 2003
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Tech Junky said:
It's the silly thing that Windows requires for TPM on W11.

Anyway.... so, you updated the ME / UEFI to the latest versions and Windows is showing missing drivers for several items. I'm starting to think this is more of an OS issue than the board / RST.

For my systems I can usually grab a bunch of drivers and then dump them into a single folder for install. W/MSFT is crappy at providing drivers through WU though so, having them on hand makes life easier. Though I've been playing around with Driver Booster from IOBit and it seems to do a decent job since I've killed QU by DNS blocking completely due to them pushing junk updates that break more stuff than they fix.

So, at this point I would dig up some drivers and see if W will clear those unknown devices from the list and populate the drives in disk manager.
Click to expand...

Device Manager right now (it's the 2 WDC drives at the bottom I want to use in RAID):

um.jpg

(To be clear: I can even use the drives within Windows. I formatted them in Disk Management just now to make sure, and indeed they show up in Windows Explorer now.)

You still think I should try the drivers? I honestly just want to understand why you think that might help. Is BIOS/UEFI not completely independent of the OS/Windows and whatever drivers it may or may not have?
 
I

igor_kavinski

Lifer
Jul 27, 2020
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At this point, you may wanna share screenshot of the BIOS options you see.
Anything to do with Integrated peripherals or storage or something like that so we can see if there is some obscure option with a hard to understand name that needs to be toggled.
 
Turbonium

Turbonium

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Mar 15, 2003
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igor_kavinski said:
At this point, you may wanna share screenshot of the BIOS options you see.
Anything to do with Integrated peripherals or storage or something like that so we can see if there is some obscure option with a hard to understand name that needs to be toggled.
Click to expand...

I assume you mean I take pictures of my monitor while in BIOS with my phone's crappy camera? I can do that I suppose.
 
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igor_kavinski

Lifer
Jul 27, 2020
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Turbonium said:
Is BIOS/UEFI not completely independent of the OS/Windows and whatever drivers it may or may not have?
Click to expand...
You are right about that. I didn't need drivers to set up RAID when I tinkered with Intel Matrix RAID (what it was called back then). Just pressed the relevant key or combination of keys during boot before the option to do so disappeared and it took me to the RAID screen where I created the RAID. This kinda gives me pause, now that I think about it. It's not showing anything because there is no RAID array to show. See if the screen offers any option to create a RAID array. Then it might show u the drives from which you can create the array.

Drivers only required inside Windows so it can see that RAID array.
 
Turbonium

Turbonium

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igor_kavinski said:
You are right about that. I didn't need drivers to set up RAID when I tinkered with Intel Matrix RAID (what it was called back then). Just pressed the relevant key or combination of keys during boot before the option to do so disappeared and it took me to the RAID screen where I created the RAID. This kinda gives me pause, now that I think about it. It's not showing anything because there is no RAID array to show. See if the screen offers any option to create a RAID array. Then it might show u the drives from which you can create the array.

Drivers only required inside Windows so it can see that RAID array.
Click to expand...

When I updated the BIOS, I saw an initial screen for a split second (with AMI logo etc.) that gave me options for setting up RAID, but it disappeared in like 2 seconds, and I never saw it again.

I tried disabling the Asus logo and disabling fast bootup etc., with POST until I hit ESC, but I again, never saw the option again. I don't know if it's related though.

Anyway, see some images of BIOS in my post above.
 
Turbonium

Turbonium

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Mar 15, 2003
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Perhaps I'm supposed to install all relevant Intel software/drivers within Windows, then create the RAID array from within Windows?

I mean, maybe the BIOS screen can only detect and manipulate things once the array already exists?

What do you think of that theory? Doesn't sound right to me, idk.
 
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igor_kavinski

Lifer
Jul 27, 2020
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Turbonium said:
Perhaps I'm supposed to install all relevant Intel software/drivers within Windows, then create the RAID array from within Windows?
Click to expand...
Nah. That's not how RAID works. It's always created OUTSIDE the OS, unless it's software RAID (like the one created in Windows with dynamic disks or mdadm or ZFS in Linux).
 
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igor_kavinski

Lifer
Jul 27, 2020
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Turbonium said:
I tried disabling the Asus logo and disabling fast bootup etc., with POST until I hit ESC, but I again, never saw the option again. I don't know if it's related though.
Click to expand...
Hmm...that means some option disabled it. It's also very telling that SATA screen shows no option to select between legacy/AHCI/RAID.

Can you post a screenshot of the ADVANCED menu?

Load BIOS defaults and see if the boot message reappears.

The RST showing no drives makes sense. Normally, you can't create RAID arrays from within this text based BIOS. You need to enter the RAID BIOS from the boot screen.

Also, it's a long shot but try turning SATA hotplug to enabled.
 
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igor_kavinski

Lifer
Jul 27, 2020
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Turbonium said:
I'm pretty sure Intel chipset RAID is software RAID, is it not?
Click to expand...
It's software in the sense that there is no dedicated RAID CPU for the XOR operations of RAID 5. But you can call it hardware RAID in a sense since it's provided by the mobo and sits ABOVE the OS layer. That's why the OS needs drivers to see it. OS RAID doesn't need drivers since the OS itself has support for it. I think the mobo RAID used to be referred to as chipset RAID back in the days.
 
Turbonium

Turbonium

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Mar 15, 2003
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igor_kavinski said:
Hmm...that means some option disabled it. It's also very telling that SATA screen shows no option to select between legacy/AHCI/RAID.

Can you post a screenshot of the ADVANCED menu?

Load BIOS defaults and see if the boot message reappears.

The RST showing no drives makes sense. Normally, you can't create RAID arrays from within this text based BIOS. You need to enter the RAID BIOS from the boot screen.

Also, it's a long shot but try turning SATA hotplug to enabled.
Click to expand...

Tried setting to defaults, nothing happened, just gives me the silly Asus splashscreen again.

And here:
 
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igor_kavinski

Lifer
Jul 27, 2020
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OK let's see screenshots for:

PCH config
PCH-FW config
PCI subsystem
NVMe config
HDD/SSD SMART info
Onboard devices config
System agent config

And what does it show in the Tool tab?

Does the Main tab have any configurable options or just system info?
 
Turbonium

Turbonium

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Mar 15, 2003
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VMD = relevant right?

I think I found a relevant option. Check my last picture. Will try it in a moment (I have a feeling if I enable "Map SATA Controller under VMD", it will work), but tell me what you think of everything.
 
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Turbonium

Turbonium

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igor_kavinski said:
Yes. I think VMD should be disabled. It's meant for NVMe as far as I know.
Click to expand...

Damn. Should I try it anyway you think? I don't know anymore.

(Intel RST mentions "VMD" in the driver name if you look at one of the previous pictures I posted.)
 
Turbonium

Turbonium

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Mar 15, 2003
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:D I was right (and thanks for making me look closer at the buried menu; can't believe I missed it earlier, every damn time).

(I had to enable something buried very deep in one of the menus you mentioned.)
 
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Turbonium

Turbonium

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OK, so I enabled RAID-0 in the RST menu, but it spent exactly zero time building the array for some odd reason (is this normal for a 2 drive RAID-0 array?). It does show as enabled in BIOS though.

However, when I load up Windows, it not only does not see the drives anymore in Device Manager or Windows Explorer, but I also can't see the drives in Disk Management (all I can see is the active nVME and the unformatted/inactive nVME).

This is without a doubt the hardest RAID setup I've ever done. But yeah, I still need some help.
 
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