GA-990FXA-UD3 v1.0 SSD and RAID problems when installing Win 7

[ORCRiST]

Hi all,

So, I've had my GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.0 mobo since 2011 with no problems (F2 BIOS) whatsoever.

Last week, I decided to upgrade some hardware so a few clicks on Newegg and I had some new boxes a few days later. All I ordered was a new videocard, 8GB more memory of the exact type I had (increasing the total from 8GB to 16), and a new SSD.

Being that my Win7 x64 install was 4+ years old, I decided to do a clean install with my new SSD and rebuild the OS with the latest drivers, etc.

For the life of me, I CANNOT get my RAID0 and my new SSD to work together with the Windows 7 install DVD, the same combo worked fine before the upgrade so I am really at a loss, other than I flashed my BIOS to F9.

I'm a power user that's built hundreds of systems. I know my way around a BIOS and a OS, so this is really killing me.

All I want is to do a clean install of Win 7 Ultimate x64 on my new SSD and have Win 7 recognize two Velociraptors I have in a RAID0 as a storage drive. That's it.

The problem is, the Windows 7 install CD WILL NOT recognize the SSD unless the OnChip SATA Type in BIOS is set to 'Native IDE' (BIOS see's the SSD and my Velociraptors no matter what I set: AHCI, Native IDE or RAID).

(Yes, I have a USB stick with all the ACHI and RAID drivers possible from Gigabyte and AMD making sure the drivers are for my rev 1.0 version of the board.)

Windows 7 Setup will only see the SSD if I have BIOS set to Native IDE. I've tried 8 bazillion times to 'load a driver' in Win7 setup to no avail. I can 'load a driver' all day with the RAID drivers and Win7 setup will see the array every time, but never the SSD.

I've successfully installed Win 7 on the SSD under Native IDE, but when I go back into BIOS to enable the RAID controller for my RAID, Windows crashes on start-up with a BSOD. Repeated that, did the enable ACHI registry hack, reboot switched to RAID in BIOS... BSOD.

The ONLY "success" I've had is while I had the SSD in SATA port 5 (SATA ports 5 and 6 are independently configurable from the rest). The two RAID drives were in 2 and 3. Windows successfully installed and I had a working RAID array. BUT the SSD was under IDE, the transfer rates were so bad it might as well been a regular HDD.

I've tried a whole bunch of variations on this. I've made a custom slip-streamed Win7 install CDs with all the drivers; nope. I'm starting to go postal... I've looked and looked, and can't find any solid info. I've read people making claims that you have to plug your Raid drives into certain SATA ports, that the SSD should go in a certain port, that you HAD to have EFI-boot disabled, that I have to set a certain boot order...that I should slaughter a lamb at midnight listening to Ozzy...

PLEASE HELP.

Is it the BIOS version? Is it the ports? Is it a hidden BIOS setting? Is it a magical windows registry entry? A super-secret boot-order???

Hardware:
CPU: AMD Phenom II x6 1100T (never OC'd, aftermarket cooler)
MOBO: GA-990FXA-UD3 rev 1.0, F9 BIOS
VIDEO: EVGA GTX960
SSD: Samsung EVO 850 250GB
RAID DRIVES: Western Digital WD VelociRaptor (WD2500HHTZ) 250GB (x2) in RAID 0
MEMORY: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B)
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64

[AgentFXA]

While I have no real solution to your problem I came across some (other) forum posts indicating SSDs can be a problem depending on which mobo/ssd brand combination it is. Some people fixed it by changing SSD brand others used a newer mobo revision.

Your mobo is 4 years old (design) hence .. you guess it

Try the latest Beta bios (F10e) for your mobo?

[dmdilks]

Do you have it setup this way in the bios?

OnChip SATA Controller (AMD SB950, SATA3_0~SATA3_5 connectors)
Enables

OnChip SATA Type (AMD SB950, SATA3_0~SATA3_3 connectors)
RAID Enables RAID for the SATA controller.

OnChip SATA Port4/5 Type (AMD SB950, SATA3_4 and SATA3_5 connectors)
As SATA Type The mode depends on the OnChip SATA Type settings.

I know you have tried many things. But have you tried to put the SSD on port 0 And the raid on 4 & 5.

I don't know if this will work disconnect the raid drives set up the SSD with AHCI. Once you got it up and running change it back to Raid. Just make sure you have the SSD 1st in the list to boot too. Because Raid & AHCI are basically the same.

[ORCRiST]

Do you have it setup this way in the bios?

OnChip SATA Controller (AMD SB950, SATA3_0~SATA3_5 connectors)
Enables

OnChip SATA Type (AMD SB950, SATA3_0~SATA3_3 connectors)
RAID Enables RAID for the SATA controller.

OnChip SATA Port4/5 Type (AMD SB950, SATA3_4 and SATA3_5 connectors)
As SATA Type The mode depends on the OnChip SATA Type settings.

I know you have tried many things. But have you tried to put the SSD on port 0 And the raid on 4 & 5.

I don't know if this will work disconnect the raid drives set up the SSD with AHCI. Once you got it up and running change it back to Raid. Just make sure you have the SSD 1st in the list to boot too. Because Raid & AHCI are basically the same.

Yes, those are the BIOS settings I'm (trying) to use.

I haven't tried that particular combination of ports, but I will. I don't know if the RAID controller will work with ports 3_4 and 3_5...

The main issue with your advice is that the Win7 setup CD will not see the SSD under ACHI - only under Native IDE...

[dmdilks]

If you leave it setup as raid will windows see it. Plus with out the other disk being connected. Just throwing some stuff out there for you.

[ORCRiST]

If you leave it setup as raid will windows see it. Plus with out the other disk being connected. Just throwing some stuff out there for you.

I figured out a work-around. I was able to install Windows with ACHI enabled. I think the slip-streamed Win7 install DVD I made, along with releasing the VelociRaptor drives from the logical disk (detailed below) I'd made with the mobo RAID controller previously finally allowed me to install Windows with ACHI.

I entered BIOS and enabled the RAID controller, rebooted, then CTRL-F'd to get into the RAID BIOS.

I deleted the RAID and left all the drives on their own, unconfigured. Rebooted, then when back into BIOS and disabled the RAID controller again (switched back to ACHI).

Got Windows setup to see the individual drives (YAY!) and then installed the OS to the SSD.

I then booted into Windows, and used Windows Disk Managment to create a striped RAID from the now individual VelociRaptors that windows could see as the RAID controller no longer had them configured in a bound logical drive.

Presto! Working boot SSD and RAID 0 array.

Ran Crystal Disk Mark and I got awesome numbers from both the SSD and the RAID - it took me 4 days of bashing my head against the wall, still never got windows to play nice with the hardware RAID controller in BIOS, but got what I wanted in the end with performance numbers BETTER that what I had with my old build with the same RAID drives!

Thanks for the help guys.

OCZ-Vertex II (SATA II) 120GB - Old Win boot drive:


My new Samsung EVO 850 (SATA III) 250GB - New Win boot drive:


--------------

VelociRaptors using the 990FX-UD3 hardware RAID(0) controller in the old Win7 install:


VelociRaptors configured using Windows Disk Managment in a RAID 0:


Windows boot time is faster than ever, obviously the new SATA III SSD helps, but because I'm not using the built-in mobo RAID controller, there are no pauses anymore during POST on boot-up as the hardware controller waits and displays the configured drives before finally booting to the OS. \o/