Issues setting up m.2 boot drive and RAID 10 on GA-Z170X-UD5 MB

[CheesyBadger]

I've setup my latest PC build but I'm having issues getting my m.2 boot/system drive and my raid 10 array to work correctly. I've loaded windows 10 on the m.2 SSD and now I am attempting to setup a raid 10 array using 4x 4TB hard drives in the UEFI raid configuration on my GA-Z170X-UD5 MB. Was able to boot from my m.2 drive into windows fine, but as soon as I setup the raid 10 array through UEFI controls I'm unable to see any bootable drives. Raid setup still recognized both the new 8GB raid 10 array and the other m.2 drive, but bios no longer recognizes it as a boot drive. As soon as I disable the raid array I can boot off the m.2 fine again. Any help would be appreciated!

 

[lehtv]

EDIT: See post #4.

Spoiler: Not relevant

The M.2 slot is sharing bandwidth with one (or two) of the SATA ports you're using, meaning you can only use one or the other.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5480#manual
Motherboard manual page 30. According to the last table on that page, an M.2 PCIe x4 SSD in the M2H_32G M.2 connector will only block the SATA3_5 connector, but SATA3 connectors 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 will work:

In addition, the board has SATA3 connectors 6 and 7 provided by an ASMedia chip. You can't use these for a RAID config but you can use them for any additional drives.

The M2H_32G connector is the lower one between the PCIe slots (see page 29). On page 28 you can see where the SATA3_5 connector is located.

 

[CheesyBadger]

My current config is m.2 in the M2D_32G which is showing up as SATA_3, the HDDs are in SATA 1,2,4,5. If I'm reading the M2D_32G chart right on the same page, that should be compatible. I did have this configuration working before, but had a disk name collision issue I'm trying to resolve with the raid, and since i had accidentally loaded the windows reserve volume on my raid during my inital setup I was trying a fresh install on only the SSD and then setting the raid up afterwards.

 

[lehtv]

Ah, so your M.2 SSD is SATA, not PCIe. Make/model?

When you installed Windows, was your SATA controller already in RAID mode? If it was in AHCI mode, then your Windows install is not "RAID-ready", that might explain why it doesn't work.

 

[CheesyBadger]

Sandisk X400 512GB M.2-2280, and I think it was in AHCI now that you mention it. If I'm understanding what you're saying the correct order to do things would be...
1. Unplug raid drives to avoid reserve drive being installed in them
2. Set BIOS to raid mode
3. Install windows to m.2 SSD
4. Connect raid drives
5. Setup raid 10 in UEFI
6. Profit!

 

[CheesyBadger]

Ah, so your M.2 SSD is SATA, not PCIe. Make/model?

When you installed Windows, was your SATA controller already in RAID mode? If it was in AHCI mode, then your Windows install is not "RAID-ready", that might explain why it doesn't work.

It seems to have been the "RAID-ready" issue that you diagnosed. Appears to be working fine after following the steps that I listed above. Thanks for your help so much lehtv!

 

[lehtv]

@CheesyBadger That's great to hear, glad it's working now