Two different raid menus??

[mlah384]

I set up two SSDs in RAID 0 and the system asks for ctrl+m to configure the raid.... After installing windows, I connected two 750gb 7200rpm sata drives and tried to set them up as raid 0 as well but a different menu is asked for ctrl+i... The computer will not boot to the SSD raid array, it only tries to boot to the 750gb raid array... The SSDs are not offered as a boot option when the 750s are connected... What's up with that?

Thanks

 

[Engineer]

What board? I'm assuming one is for the Intel Chipset RAID and the other is an addon such as Marvel or some other?

 

[mlah384]

Also, the system will not let me get into bios with all the drives connected...

 

[mlah384]

Gigabyte Z77x-ud5h

 

[Smoblikat]

Gigabyte Z77x-ud5h

It has a seperate controller for an extra pair of ports. imnot suer why it wonjt let you boot from them though, i have a 13$ RAID card in my computer and I can select that as a boot option just fine in my BIOS. i cant imagine that onboard would be more difficult.

 

[Engineer]

From the specs, it contains two chipsets for SATA (and RAID): The Intel Z77 native and a Marvell:


I'm assuming that one BIOS subset is for the Intel chipset (Intel OROM) and the other is a Marvell subset (Marvell OROM). You would need to see what ports go to what to determine which RAID setup to use (I would think the native Intel ports to be the fastest and most stable but that's a guess).


Chipset:

2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0/SATA3 1) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2 2~5) supporting up to 4 SATA 3Gb/s devices
1 x mSATA connector
* The SATA2 5 connector will become unavailable when the mSATA connector is installed with a solid state drive.
Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10
* When a RAID set is built across the SATA 6Gb/s and SATA 3Gb/s channels, the system performance of the RAID set may vary depending on the devices being connected.

2 x Marvell 88SE9172 chips:

3 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (GSATA3 6/7/8) supporting up to 3 SATA 6Gb/s devices
1 x eSATA 6Gb/s connector on the back panel supporting up to 1 SATA 6Gb/s device
Support for RAID 0 and RAID 1

 

[mlah384]

I can't get into bios at all now... I disconnected the 750s but now I can't get in bios at all...

 

[Engineer]

Do a cmos clear.

 

[mlah384]

I cleared CMOS... It will let me in now... But not if I connect all four drives... Will it just not work with two raid arrays?

 

[mlah384]

Bah... Have to reinstall windows... One of the SSD drives was somehow knocked out of the Raid... Man, this has been the buggiest computer build... Jeez!

 

[mlah384]

Hmmm ... It keeps knocking an SSD out of raid... One is listed as "free" other is listed as "assigned".. What could be causing that? I have to keep resetting bios after I set the raid back up... What on earth am I doing wrong?

 

[Engineer]

I would move the SSD's to the Intel 6Gbps ports (would set up with CTRL-I menu). I would move the other two drives to the 3Gbps Intel ports (again, CTRL-I menu). Unless you need it, I would skip the Marvell ports completely (although you should be able to set them up and even boot from them).

 

[mlah384]

Why would the sata 3gb/s take priority over the sata 6gb/s slots? I have to disconnect the 750gb drives from the mobo 3gb/s slots or the SSDs in the 6gb/s slots will not be recognized...

 

[Engineer]

Don't know...probably something to do with the SSD's being on the 6Gbps Marvell ports. I would move them to the two 6Gbps Intel ports and start from there (IMO).

 

[mlah384]

K...I moved them... Had to reset CMOS yet again... Dunno why the motherboard bios keeps freaking out?

They all show up in the intel menu now... I'm installing windows now... Lost the installation due to the Marvell raid freaking out...

Thanks a TON for your help! Hopefully it will all work now!

 

[mlah384]

I spoke too soon... It locked on the first reboot after windows install... Had to start over... Bah... I've kinda lost faith in the reliability of this system long term...

 

[mlah384]

I can't tell if its locking or just running extremely slow? I'm thinking I need a better motherboard? Is it messing up since the same controller is running two raid arrays, One that has two 3gb/s drives and the other array has two 6gb/s SSDs?

 

[Engineer]

I'm not sure if you need the F6 method to install the Intel RST drivers first or not (when installing Windows). I think that Windows must have the drivers installed for the boot RAID since they are not natively built in. I installed my system on a single drive and then migrated to RAID later using a registry change and installing the Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers before migrating. I think you need to install the RST drivers as you're installing Windows using the <F6> method.

See first entry (F6 drivers) from here:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Sea...="Intel+Rapid+Storage+Technology+(Intel+RST)"

 

[mlah384]

The SSDs worked fine in the Marvell, but as soon as you plug a single drive or more into the mobo, all hell breaks loose... Even if it is non-raid... So I can't even get a single HD to work along with the raid 0 SSDs.... So is this a mobo issue?