Gigabyte 990fxa-ud3 RAID question

[ctag]

Hi everyone

I recently built my first all-brand-new hardware desktop in preparation for college. It's an AMD 8150 running on a Gigabyte 990fxa-ud3 motherboard. I tried for the better part of a week to get RAID (0 or 1) to work with Windows 7 x64, but for the life of me I couldn't find a driver that would work

I'm pretty keen on raid. While I was getting the computer assembled, I copied everything I own (internet research + commercial websites) to a 2TB Seagate drive (really bad idea but it was a BRAND NEW DRIVE) and then formatted all of my older drives to get them ready for the thrift store. Of course, the next day, the 2TB drive wouldn't even spin up, it was absolutely dead. Anyway, I don't want that to happen again, and I like the idea of using RAID.

So, I'm sure the question of how to get Windows to play nice with Gigabyte raid has been asked before because I've been searching around (how I found this website!). Has anyone come up with a solution?

Also, I'm starting to wonder, is it possible to put a drive on one of the normal IDE mode SATA ports (the mobo has two normal sata ports, and then four more that can do raid) and then set up raid on the four raid ports, and have windows install to the single drive, and use the raid array as storage? I've only been fooling with getting Win7 to install to raid, not recognize raid after being installed already.

Thanks! I've seen a lot of really great ideas and discussion here, glad to have an account now!

-BBX

 

[ATMINSIDE]

I had RAID0 running on my build before I got the SSD.

My best advice to you is to have the Gigabyte CD inserted while installing Windows 7. There's an option during the install to load drivers, load the MoBo, RAID and HDD drivers that are on the disk and it should work just fine.

And I would recommend keeping the Windows install on the four main SATA ports, the controller for the other two just isn't nearly as good.

 

[ctag]

Cool, thanks for the heads up on the SATA!

I've tried using both the official Gigabyte driver disk, and making my own from drivers off their website. Whenever I try to load the driver for RAID during Windows installation I get an error that Windows refuses to install unsigned drivers, and then it locks me out of using the available driver. . .

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Cool, thanks for the heads up on the SATA!

I've tried using both the official Gigabyte driver disk, and making my own from drivers off their website. Whenever I try to load the driver for RAID during Windows installation I get an error that Windows refuses to install unsigned drivers, and then it locks me out of using the available driver. . .

Have you tried just a HDD driver? And it may just need the MoBo driver, not the RAID driver. I did the install over a year ago to my RAID0 stuff, and never reinstalled until my SSD came in the mail.

 

[ctag]

No, I haven't.

The little booklet that comes with the mobo instructed me to load a driver off the disk:
\BootDrv\SBxxxW7\RAID\W764A
Of course, I tried clicking just about every other AHCI or RAID driver I could find on the disk after Windows rejected the first one. . .

Would the HDD or Mobo driver be on the disk? I'm slightly confused, installing the AMD drivers on this computer (I gave up and installed windows to a single old disk) has been frustrating with their Catalyst Install Manager junk, so I haven't seen any single drivers other than the raid ones. .

Thanks!,
-BBX

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Let me check my disk when I get home from work and see if I can remember what I used.

Should be earlier than normal since tomorrow is the 4th

 

[ctag]

Awesome Hey, I really appreciate that, thanks ATMINSIDE!

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Awesome Hey, I really appreciate that, thanks ATMINSIDE!

No problem, and welcome to the Gigabyte/AMD world!

Sour first install, but you'll love it soon enough!

P.S. Do you have the old BIOS or is it a new GUI one?

 

[ctag]

Thanks, it's good to be here

I heard some horror stories about running the 8150 without a new bios, so I updated to the newest one I could find on gigabyte's download section. it's still the classic blue menu interface though..

 

[ATMINSIDE]

I love that classic interface.

Also, could you add your build to your signature? It'll help anyone that comes to help know your computer at a glance.

Edit: so you're on BIOS Rev F8, correct?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

For me, there are two RAID locations.

Disc/chipset/7-ser/win7/raid
Disc/bootdrv/sbxxxw7/raid

I believe you want the first one.

 

[ctag]

Awesome!
The first path leads to a setup program, which file am I going to look for while installing windows?

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Awesome!
The first path leads to a setup program, which file am I going to look for while installing windows?

Oh! Go to the Bin64 folder in the first link, I think its one in there.

 

[ctag]

Yes, I have BIOS F8.
I also took care of the signature, thanks!

I have to wait for Seagate to give me a new drive before I can try RAID again x.x and they sent me an email claiming that there are no 2TB drives left (what?!), so I have no clue when the new one will be here.

In the mean time I think I'll go take a look at the F@H thingy, looks like a fun way to support cancer research.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Good luck with it all man!