P67A-UD4-B3 Unable to install Win 7 x64 on RAID0

[Squiggs]

I just purchased a pair of Seagate 3TB SATA 6Gb/s drives that I want to install as a RAID0 configuration, but I cannot install Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

Board: P67A-UD4-B3
CPU: Core i7-2600K (3.4GHz)
RAM: 16GB
BIOS: F8

I have set the option to boot as EFI, I have tried both eXtreme Hard Drive enabled and disabled, PCH SATA Control Mode is set to [RAID(XHD)].  Tried with both eSATA  enabled and disabled (but I'm not using the Marvell eSATA).  I have tried the drives in the white SATA3_0&1 ports, as well as the black SATA2_4&5 ports.

The drives were not recognized by the Intel RST RAID BIOS until I upgraded from F5 to F8, after that I was able to configure the drive to 5.6TB and from the Intel RAID boot screen, it listed it as SCSI-0, Bootable(Yes), using SATA ports 0 & 1.  I went back into BIOS and changed the boot order to Hard Disk, CDROM, Disabled, and have verified the Hard Disk Boot order shows only SCSI-0 Intel 6TB (the name I gave it in the Intel RST).

When the Windows 7 installation starts, I loaded the newest Intel Drivers, which let me create a new partition and I formatted it, giving me 3 drives, 100MB System, 128MB MSR, and 5588.7 GB Primary.  However Windows will not install to any, stating:

"Windows is unable to install to the selected location. Error 0x80300001. Windows cannot be installed to this disk.  Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu."

I then tried ignoring the RAID drives and adding a spare 1TB drive I had lying around.  I received the same error on all drives. I then tried removing the RAID drives and left the BIOS as RAID(XHD) and EFI mode and tried installing windows to this non-RAID drive.  I received the warning about it being an MBR drive used on a EFI system, so I chose to reparation as GPT, then proceeded to install Windows.  Once Windows was up and running, I installed all the latest drivers and shut down.  I then readded the RAID drives, but instead of booting, I got only a blinking cursor (I used F12 to make sure I booted the correct SCSI drive).  I removed the RAID drives, and it boots.  I reboot into the installer, and again, I'm not allowed to install Windows to any of the drives.

It seems like the 3TB drives are not supported (Seagate too obsure?)... am I waiting for an F9 BIOS?  What else can I try?

[Fatman]

Why would you want to run 2x3 TB drives in Raid??? If I was you, I would get a couple of 60 or 120gb ssd's in raid0 for your OS and use your 3Tb drives as storage. That would be a better option IMO because if you you put a lot of data on those 3TB drives in raid0 and you break that raid, you will lose a hell of a lot!!

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome.

I must admit that I would be inclined to agree with Fatman on this. The drives would be better run as a RAID1 if you have important data that you need to keep or just as standalone drives if it is only the usual sort of thing like music and videos etc. A smaller fast drive or even pair of drives in RAID0 for speed would be better just for booting. You would only need a couple of hundred gigabytes for this though. The other option for fast booting is to use a small fast SSD rather than magnetic disks.

[Squiggs]

Thanks for the advice, I ended up splitting them up as 2 separate drives and using them conventionally.  Since I was able to get Windows installed in EFI mode, I suspect it must just have been the drives.

I never intended to store anything of value on the drive, it was intended for my typical downloads which are 6~8 GiB .rar collections that can take a while to extract, I wanted something that could extract these at a decent pace, or let me extract 5 or 6 at once without the need to delete them (like when I extract them all remotely from work so they are ready when I get home).  Now I think I'll just put .rars on one, and extract to the other.  I just wanted space so I could seed em back for a while, but no biggy if they all go.

[Fatman]

Fair enough!